May 18, 2011 was a busy day for alumnus Palmer Schoening. On that day, he graduated from Hillsdale College and started his own business.
“It was really scary, extremely scary,” he said.
But two years later, the business is strong.
“The lights are still on,” he said, laughing. “Most businesses, about 60 percent, fail within the first year, so I’m really happy.”
Through his business, Schoening Strategies, he runs a coalition of more than 50 businesses around the nation called the Family Business Coalition. The coalition comes together over shared interests to influence legislation.
“Our goals are to kill the death tax, lower marginal tax rates, lower capital gains tax rates, and decrease regulations on these guys, because they create the majority of jobs in the country,” Schoening said.
He said his favorite part of the job is being able to make a difference.
The company’s most recent successes include repealing the death tax in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and North Carolina. This year, in two blue states, Maryland and New York, it has made positive changes in the law to make it a lot friendlier for businesses, he said.
“It’s nice to be able to tell the family business owners, ‘Hey, you’re not going to have to grapple with this tax anymore,’” Schoening said.
Schoening credits his father, who has been a business owner for years, for inspiring him to go into business himself.
“I worked with him my entire life. He had a laundromat, dry cleaners, and a couple apartment buildings,” he said. “So after hours, I was in there cleaning out the laundry vents and stuff like that and seeing what it took day to day to run a business, so it was a little less of a shock for me.”
Schoening originally went to Hillsdale as a biology major. However, taking the Constitution class, inspired him to change his course of study to political economy. He also credits his academic adviser at Hillsdale, Professor of Political Economy Gary Wolfram, for feeding his ambition to start a business.
Wolfram said he has spoken with Palmer a number of times since his graduation and remembers him as “a good student.”
“I believe his Hillsdale education has provided him with the background necessary to affect public policy, and I am sure he would tell you the same,” Wolfram said in an email.
While at Hillsdale, Schoening played for the Charger football team and was the treasurer for Delta Sigma Pi fraternity, as well as a member of Praxis.
After Hillsdale, Schoening moved to Washington, D.C., and interned with the American Family Business Institute while earning his master’s degree in public policy with a concentration in economics at George Mason University. He then transitioned into working for the institute and climbed his way up to director of federal affairs, all while laying the groundwork for his own business.
Schoening’s advice for other Hillsdale students is to get involved while at Hillsdale and take advantage of the WHIP program.
Schoening said Hillsdale has a great presence on the hill, and he has worked to make it stronger as a driving force behind establishing the D.C.–Hillsdale Alumni Steering Committee.
But even with this success on the hill, Schoening isn’t stopping where he’s at.
Next week, Schoening looks forward to traveling to Hawaii with his father for a business venture.
“We have a three acre plot of land outside of Hilo, Hawaii, and I’ll be helping him start up our new family organic farm,” Schoening said. “We plan to grow avocados, mangos, coffee, and more. It should be a fun new venture.”
