Joshua Robertson, a Rawls College alumnus, was recently named as a Beta Gamma Sigma 2021 Entrepreneurial Achievement Award recipient.
Joshua Robertson, managing partner of GrowCo Capital, has been named as a Beta Gamma Sigma 2021 Entrepreneurial Achievement Award winner. The award recognizes individuals who develop, organize and enhance successful new ventures. Robertson was nominated by the Texas Tech University chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma based on his exemplary demonstration of leadership excellence.
Robertson grew up in a healthcare family and knew from a young age that he would continue down that career path.
While completing his undergraduate marketing and management degrees in the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business, Robertson took a “Managing a Family Entrepreneurial Business” course and wrote a business plan focusing on the hospice industry. After graduating in 2006 Robertson moved back to the Fort Worth area to be with his family and to begin working with his father, who had healthcare industry experience.
With some help from his father, Robertson turned the business plan from college into real action by creating National Home Medical Equipment (HME). During Robertson's time leading National HME, the company partnered with more than 500 hospice organizations and served more than 50,000 patients and their families across the United States.
By 2009, Robertson decided to return to Rawls College to gain the appropriate skills to continue to grow his flourishing business. As a student in the Professional MBA program, Robertson enrolled in courses that focused on exploring complex business issues and creating strategies to solve them, skills that would prove useful in his entrepreneurial endeavors. Robertson earned his MBA in 2011.
In July 2015, Robertson and his father would go on to sell National HME and then establish GrowCo Capital. One of their early investments was a company called E-mist Innovations, which was later rebranded as EMist Disinfection Solutions. Under Robertson, EMist manufactures and sells innovative electrostatic disinfection sprayers, which electrically charge the disinfectant liquid as it leaves the sprayer's nozzle, allowing the liquid to stick and evenly coat a surface instead of accumulating and dripping.
Robertson and EMist have played a big role in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. During the course of 2020, EMist grew more than 50,000 percent and has electrostatic disinfectant sprayers in use at the White House, the Pentagon, Apple, Texas Tech, and other Fortune 500 companies.
Along with his entrepreneurial endeavors, Robertson is also committed to Project 4031, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit he founded with his wife, Kristina, also a Texas Tech graduate, in 2011. Project 4031 financially assists terminally ill children and adults and helps them fulfill their last wishes.
Robertson's entrepreneurial success and philanthropic work made him a prime nominee for Texas Tech. Beta Gamma Sigma evaluates nominees for the Entrepreneurial Achievement Award based on the following criteria:
· Entrepreneurs who develop, organize and launch a successful business venture or social entrepreneurship endeavor that has demonstrated success and proven through its operational results to be a sustainable concept
· Exemplars for ethical business leadership and the values of the Beta Gamma Sigma Society, including honor and integrity and the pursuit of wisdom, earnestness and service are sought.
Robertson continues to give his time, energy and resources to Rawls College through his work with RawlsRaiders, the Rawls Advisory Council and the Joshua and Kristina Robertson Family Scholarship Endowment.
About Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS):
Established in 1913, Beta Gamma Sigma is an international honor society which operates exclusively for AACSB accredited business programs. Membership in Beta Gamma Sigma is highly selective, reserved for top students within the top 5% of business schools around the world. Members of Beta Gamma Sigma go on to lead—and even create—some of the largest and most successful companies around the globe. Beta Gamma Sigma has inducted more than 830,000 members worldwide since its founding in 1913. The Society is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.