West Windsor, N.J. - When choosing the best company and best boss to work for, who will treat you better than you treat yourself?

That's Carla Fallone's motto, an instructor at Mercer County Community College who teaches students how to go into business for themselves.

Fallone has taught business courses at MCCC since 2007, including the grant-funded Entrepreneurial Training Program for the Unemployed (ETPU), an intensive six-week, 60-hour course for those who want to start their own small business. The program is coordinated by Dr. Michael Glass, director of statewide training at MCCC's Center for Training and Development.

For students seeking an instructor with an extensive business background, Fallone's resume is hard to match. She is a fourth generation businesswoman with 23 years of experience. Her family's business-minded roots can be traced to her great-grandmother, who opened a bakery in Sunrise, Wyoming, in 1907.

"I have always had very strong female role models in my life," said Fallone, adding that she also comes from a long line of male entrepreneurs, dating back five generations.

Fallone followed in her great-grandmother's footsteps by opening Fallone Foods in 1991, a bakery, café, retail and wholesale food services corporation. Currently she runs Fallone Business Resources, a consulting company for fledgling entrepreneurs.

In addition to teaching at Mercer, Fallone teaches business courses at other New Jersey colleges. A lifelong resident of Warren, she has strong New Jersey roots, but her true passion is traveling the globe to help start-up businesses. Her most recent destination was Kenya, Africa, in the fall. "The project's goal was to help the women of a very poor area of the suburbs of Nairobi learn to launch, run and grow a business, and most importantly, become self-sufficient," she explains.

Fallone spent six months developing the business plan for the women's basket business, daycare center and gynecological clinic. She then spent three weeks in Kenya, presenting training classes on laptops she brought over for the women, as well as helping to get the businesses up and running. The mission for the trip was "Envision, Teach, Succeed."

In addition to her extensive world travel for business consulting, training, and research, Fallone has developed a WebEx course in business training. She was able to train 50 female entrepreneurs in Chile over the Internet.

While her global travels help her bring a more well-rounded perspective to the classroom, Fallone maintains that the biggest mix of ethnicities and cultures is right here. "The U.S. is unique; we are so culturally diverse."

"I am a very strong advocate for small business capitalism," she said, adding that the U.S. is the mecca of that mindset.

According to Fallone, most people decide to become entrepreneurs because they are passionate about their business, not because they believe it will make them the most money. Sometimes it does pay off though, she added, pointing out one of her students who created a T-shirt business on Facebook and starting making $700 per week after the first month.

Fallone's next big expedition will be to India in October 2012 to help women in the "Dalits" or "Untouchables" class find ways to make a living and support their families. While she is there, she also plans to volunteer at the Mother Theresa Orphanage in Delhi.

Why should students look to study entrepreneurship in college? Fallone says, "Becoming an entrepreneur allows someone to find their assets and strengths and helps them to follow their passions in life. You have to spend a minimum of 40 hours a week at your job, so you might as well love it."

This spring, Fallone is offering four courses as part of MCCC's Small Business Management Certification Program: Small Business Start Up and Business Plan Development (Jan. 23-Feb. 2, and April 16-26); Comprehensive QuickBooks (Feb. 7-20);Small Business Growth and Financial Development (March 12-22); and Start a Home-Based Business with Little or No Money (March 13). More information about these and other courses is available here. (Detailed course listings can be found by clicking on the pdf version of the Spring noncredit bulletin on page 12.)

Information about the Entrepreneurial Training Program for the Unemployed is available here.

To learn more about Fallone's accomplishments, read her LinkedIn profile here.