Marco Antonio Magallon, born two years after his parents moved to California from Mexico, grew up in Rancho Cucamonga between the Santa Monica Pier and the Big Bear Mountains.

While most of his friends, "nerds" from high school AP classes, went to Berkeley or UCLA, he made a strategic decision about his future and moved to the Midwest.

That route, he figured, went through a science-business major where he could both learn business and conduct research. He volunteered with Memorial Hospital for 21/2 years, where his Spanish-speaking skills helped comfort many parents of sick children.

"I did that so I could have some more experience with the actual community," Magallon says. "It would give me a reason to get off campus on a weekly basis. That was my chance to explore how I felt about medicine and if I could see myself doing that as a career."

After a stint with Notre Dame's Haiti salt project in the spring of 2009 and entrepreneurship classes in his senior year, Magallon decided to veer off the medical school track, at least for a while.

"Those afforded me a perspective there's a lot of ways to help and make a positive impact on society, not just through helping individuals as a doctor but creating businesses that fuel the economy, create innovation and move us forward as a species," he says, adding that such an opportunity was unlikely once he started a medical practice.

"By then I would probably be interested only in my career as a doctor. I would never get another chance to explore entrepreneurship the way I would after college."

Magallon joined Notre Dame's ESTEEM Program, strengthening his business skills and choosing research in the field of energy rather than medicine. When the opportunity came to put entrepreneurship into practice in South Bend with enFocus, rather than substitute teaching in California while filling out med school applications, he seized it.

"This is real life," he says. "We're sort of learning by doing, to a great degree, but we also have to remember that this isn't an experiment. In many ways it is an experiment because it hasn't been done before in South Bend, but it's something you have to get right the first time because people's lives are invested in this.

"This extra year in South Bend with enFocus would be especially worth it if I would be making a decision to stay here not only for that year, but for the first few years of my professional career, potentially making a life here. This is a life-altering choice -- as important, if not more than, when I went to college."

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'This isn't an experiment'