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Biography

Patrick T. McQuown joined Towson University as executive director of entrepreneurship in 2020. In this role, McQuown leads the collective strategic vision and direction for entrepreneurship activities at TU, including academic and non-academic programs. McQuown works with academic leaders, faculty, students, administrative leaders and external constituents to integrate, develop, and promote entrepreneurial activity and innovative for-profit and non-profit business concepts.

McQuown also oversees the StarTUp at the Armory, TU鈥檚 front door for start-ups, small businesses, as well as our region鈥檚 largest corporations. McQuown and his team works to catalyze entrepreneurs and executives and connect them to each other and to TU鈥檚 programs and people, raising the profile of regional entrepreneurship.

Additionally, McQuown leads the StarTUp Accelerator, an intensive eight-week, cohort-based fellowship where selected fellows take residency and work in a collaborative space to accelerate their ventures. 

McQuown is a 20-year veteran as a serial entrepreneur, mentor and educator.

He comes to 快活视频from James Madison University, where he was the executive director of the Gilliam Center for Entrepreneurship. At JMU, McQuown created the JMU Summer Venture Accelerator鈥攁n 8-week program for student entrepreneurs resulting in more than $12M in outside capital raised for student ventures. McQuown secured a $5.2M naming gift鈥攖he largest naming gift in the school鈥檚 history鈥攖o name the Center for Entrepreneurship, and an additional gift of $1.3M for the space the center will occupy.

His higher education experience goes even deeper. McQuown served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Brown University and Yale University. He also served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

He launched his first company in 1996, working out of his dorm room at George Washington University. McQuown started that venture, Proteus, with $1,000 and no outside funding. Proteus grew into a mobile media industry leader and was first in the world to create an application that allowed users to send short text messages from a Web site to a handset. Among other accomplishments, McQuown and Proteus created text-polling for the reality television show American Idol.

His second startup, SinglePoint, raised $50M in venture capital and deployed two of the largest-ever messaging campaigns鈥攐ne for the 2008 Summer Olympics and one for Obama for America.

Education

McQuown holds a B.A. from American University and an M.S. from George Washington University.

Personal

McQuown is an avid cycler, is married to wife Bridget, and has two children, Winnie and Cam.