Chancellor Kristin Sobolik (left) and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center Director Scott Morris (second from left) pose with this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year winners (from left) Charli Cooksey, Jaee Brandon-Blue, Angela Garland and Ben Molina, and UMSL alum Peter A. Racen. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)
The annual Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are always a special event at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, providing the opportunity to celebrate the present with a nod to the past and an eye on the future. The 2025 edition, held Thursday night, had the added bonus of being located in the newly renovated and newly named UMSL Innovation Center in front of a standing room-only crowd full of mentors, students, alumni, donors, family members and other supporters of the entrepreneurial work being supported by the university.
“It’s very cool to have a way to pull these successful alums back into our community and give them a way to continue to invest in that next generation of UMSL students whose lives are currently being transformed,” said Scott Morris, the director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center. “And hopefully we’ll see them back for these ceremonies in 10 to 20 years.”
Here are the 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year winners:
Student Entrepreneur of the Year
Jaee Brandon-Blue, a junior business major
Brandon-Blue is the founder and CEO of Venture Beyond Aspirations, a business-development platform helping aspiring entrepreneurs turn ideas into ownership through strategy, resources and real support. Her work at VBA also includes book scholarships for business students through partnerships with local business owners. As a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, she leads with discipline, integrity and purpose, believing that freedom starts with building something of your own.
Social Entrepreneur of the Year
Charli Cooksey, founder and CEO of WEPOWER
WEPOWER is a St. Louis-based organization activating community power to redesign systems for equity. A proud North St. Louis native, Cooksey holds her master’s degree from UMSL in secondary education. Cooksey co-founded inspireSTL, helping hundreds of students access top schools and scholarships, and she has received honors such as 30 under 30 from the St. Louis Business Journal and “What’s Right With the Region” recognition from FOCUS St. Louis. Since she launched WEPOWER in 2018, her team has engaged over 20,000 community members, driven policy change in education and economic systems and supported entrepreneurship to spark job growth across the region.
Entrepreneur Advocate of the Year
Ben Molina, entrepreneurship program manager, Cortex Innovation Community
Molina is a leader in small business development and inclusive innovation, currently serving at Cortex. After receiving his degree from UMSL in social work, Ben has been supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners across the region – helping them launch, grow and thrive in an ever-evolving economic landscape. Ben, who is the chair of the Hispanic Leaders Group of Greater St. Louis, has a work ethic rooted in the belief that lasting impact happens when we lift others up – guided by his personal mantra: “make others shine.”
Entrepreneur of the Year
Angela Garland, founder and CEO of Exit 11 Coffee
Under Garland’s leadership, Exit 11 – a specialty coffee company based in Washington, Missouri – has earned a spot on the Inc. 5000 list for three consecutive years and the St. Louis Business Journal’s Fast 50 in 2024 and 2025. This October, Exit 11 was honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as one of the top 100 small businesses in America. Angela launched Exit 11 in 2015 with a unique coworking and coffee concept and has grown it into a thriving brand with multiple drive-thru locations and a new 9,000-square-foot headquarters. She holds an MBA from UMSL and is a proud mother and grandmother who credits her family as her greatest inspiration.
“Angela Garland is a true business builder and strategic operator,” said UMSL alum Laura Burkemper, one of the committee members who selected the winners. “Co-founding Exit 11 Coffee, she scaled it from the ground up – without outside funding – into a thriving eight-location drive-thru and roastery. Her focus on smart systems, strong teams and exceptional hospitality exemplifies grit, vision and impact. She doesn’t just create businesses; she creates opportunities for others to thrive. It is my honor to support her being recognized as UMSL’s Entrepreneur of the Year.”
For Garland, being honored as an entrepreneur by UMSL – the place she chose to earn her MBA as a way to take her career in a new direction – is special.
“It’s just cool that the original idea I had, the co-working coffee shop, was presented in a class at UMSL 20 years ago, and here I am now,” she told UMSL Daily. “It has evolved into what it is today, and to be recognized for something that was just a little seed 20 years ago, it’s just really cool.”
Angela Garland, founder and CEO of Exit 11 Coffee, was named Entrepreneur of the Year. In her remarks, she expressed gratitude for those around her who helped get her to this point and shared a bit of advice for future entrepreneurs.
It’s definitely cool, though it’s not necessarily a full-circle moment because Garland’s entrepreneurial circle is far from closed. Exit 11 currently has eight locations in Missouri – two in Washington, two in Union, one in Eureka, one in Brentwood, one in St. Peters and one in St. James – with plans to open three more locations in the next year, and more in the years to follow.
One thing that’s been constantly reinforced throughout her career is that being an entrepreneur isn’t about having one great idea and then standing pat; it’s about innovating and expanding and building out from that initial business idea. Garland has several coffee-related ventures in the works, including getting into the Keurig cup market space, creating branded coffee for local businesses, selling Exit 11 syrups and creating gift boxes for customers to purchase, to name a few.
The “evolving” aspect of creating and owning a business is appealing to Garland.
“I think that’s what keeps entrepreneurs interested because naturally we are growing, too,” she said. “The drive-thru is good, it’s doing what it needs to be doing and of course, I’m still very involved, but I need to keep coming up with other products that I can sell with coffee. With the industry that we’re in, people want to know, ‘What else you got? What’s new?’”
There is one truth of the business that has really been driven home over the past couple years, as she has studied competitors in the coffee market and other food/beverage companies that have experienced dramatic growth.
“We are a marketing company selling coffee, just like 7 Brew is a marketing company that sells energy teas and coffees, and Crumbl Cookie is a marketing company that sells cookies,” she said. “We have to do a better job of telling our story because we have something for everyone. If the 18-month-old baby wants a cake pop, and the 4-year-old wants a kid frap, and the 12-year-old wants a refresher, we go from baby all the way up to Grandpa, who wants a cup of black coffee. We can take care of everybody.”
The company’s new “11 Wonders” line of coffees – served hot or cold – has “blown up,” Garland said, providing a blueprint of sorts for how to move forward. Part of building toward expansion, though, is making sure the foundation is in place. The company has spent most of this year preparing to move into a new corporate headquarters just outside of Washington, Missouri, a spacious facility that will bring a formerly spread-out operation all under one roof.
“We’ll have our office, our commissary, our kitchen and a full warehouse with a loading dock all in one location,” she said. “My cook is just so ecstatic. He’s been operating out of a used makeshift kitchen that’s maybe 500 square feet, producing like 7,000 burritos, and we’ve just launched a breakfast waffle sandwich, too. Our roastery is staying in the same spot, behind our original drive-thru stand; that had been where we were storing our supplies and stock for the drive-thru locations, and we were busting out.”
Like all of the award winners, Garland had a chance to share a few words when she received her award. Like the other winners, she shared her gratitude for those around her who helped get her to this point. And she ended with a word of advice.
“You’re never too old to start a business,” she said, “and dreams don’t have deadlines.”
