Vote Online For Charlotte’s Alan Oliva Chapela In Entrepreneur of Impact Contest
Charlotte master’s student Alan Oliva Chapela ’17 first experienced the power of home ownership through strategic steps his mother and maternal grandfather took.
Decades ago, his grandfather had the vision to buy and subdivide a lot in Mexico to enable Chapela’s mother Yazmín and her siblings to build five houses on the property, and from there, grow generational wealth. His mother later sold her house and used part of the proceeds to help her son form a real estate company in the Charlotte region and flip his first house.
Building on that foundation, the Belk College of Business scholar is living in the third house he’s bought to renovate and sell. He’s on track to graduate this spring with a Master of Science in Real Estate, adding to a bachelor’s in economics and minor in political science from Charlotte.
Now, he is asking friends, colleagues and fellow Niners to vote for him in an online contest called “Entrepreneur of Impact,” which offers one winner a mentoring session with Daymond John of “Shark Tank” fame, $25,000 and an advertising feature in Forbes. The competition’s first round of voting closes Jan. 30, and contestants must make it into the top 20 to move to the next round. At that point, contest rules say the voting “clock” will reset, and Chapela hopes voting from fellow Niners and community members will continue.