When it comes to money, Adam Blake, 20, isn't like most college students. He manages a $3 million investment portfolio through his real estate companies, B&B Acquisitions and Blake Venture Corp., which rents homes to college students.

He's also into the commercial side of real estate, mainly retail. Blake and his partners are negotiating to buy a shopping center in South Fort Worth. The terms and property location are still undisclosed.

As the property manager, Blake acts as landlord for all homes under B&B Acquisitions. He deals with electrical and plumbing problems, and whatever else comes up. It's really not his thing, he said. Looking to the future, Blake said he's interested more in the acquisition and development side of real estate.

"I'm interested in the bigger deals, the unknown territory," Blake said.

His horizons got a lot bigger this fall.

In October, Blake, who's in the entrepreneur program at Texas Christian University, was honored at the 2005 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards in Orlando, Fla., where he won first place and a check for $10,000.

Hundreds of college entrepreneurs from U.S. schools and international regions compete for the award each year.

More than the money and prestige, the award proved a doorway to something possibly bigger. Blake met another young entrepreneur during the awards weekend named Adam Farrell, a student at Cornell University in New York, and creative sparks flew.

Together, the Adamses are planning to manufacture a solar device that will save home heating and energy costs. The two have even formed a company, Silicon Solar Housing Solutions, to produce and manufacture the device, Blake said.

Solar energy technology for homes has been available for a number of years, but has thus far attracted only a niche market.

Blake and Farrell hope to bring it mainstream. They plan to roll out a prototype by Jan. 1.

All this even as Blake attended school full time. This semester he's taking classes in entrepreneurship, investments, accounting and operations management. His cumulative grade-point average is 3.7. He even makes time to participate in his fraternity.

"I'd say my time is pretty much split 75 percent real estate and 25 percent school work," Blake said.
Limitless energy and creative drive are indicative of many TCU entrepreneur students, said David Minor, director of the Neeley Entrepreneur Program. When entrepreneurs get together, it's not uncommon for them to create synergy. Synergy occurs when differing thoughts come together to form something greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Entrepreneurs tend to be original thinkers whose ideas and personalities blossom when surrounded by others of their calling, Minor said.

"That's not uncommon for kindred spirits," he said.

Even if Silicon Solar Housing Solutions goes on to do great things, it will be difficult to eclipse the academic kudos and success Blake has had in real estate, Minor said. Blake has established in three years what real estate professionals, many years his senior, take decades to accomplish.

A San Francisco native, Blake lived in several U.S. cities before entering TCU on an academic scholarship.
Immediately, he noticed that rent for student housing was fairly high, compared with the relatively inexpensive housing elsewhere in south Fort Worth.

At the end of his freshman year, he had raised enough cash to purchase his first single-family home to place on the market for rent.

He added more homes in south Fort Worth to the list, and the business took off. In the past three years, he's even added strip malls for mom-and-pop tenants.

Overall, the TCU market is a good one for residential real estate, Blake said.

"We've never had any vacancy problems. We've only had maybe one or two problems collecting rent, but that's it," he said.

By DANIEL C. BARTEL
SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM