The Business of Belief: David Buckalew ’05
A Rosen professor sold him a company. David Buckalew ’05 built a career — and a legacy — on that trust.
David Buckalew ’05 did not arrive at UCF planning a career in hospitality.
As a freshman choosing spring classes, he was simply looking for something manageable. Tennis offered one credit. Golf offered one credit. Intro to Hospitality Management offered three.
“That has to be the easiest class on campus,” he remembers thinking.
Instead, it changed the trajectory of his life.
The class was taught by Duncan Dickson, a former Rosen College professor known for approaching hospitality not as service work, but as business architecture. He broke down revenue strategy, operational efficiency and the financial mechanics behind guest experience, setting a standard that demanded precision.
“You couldn’t fake your way through it,” Buckalew says. “He made us understand every avenue of the industry.”
Dickson also believed in experience as much as instruction. Through one of his connections, Buckalew landed a job helping staff the massive Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Orlando. Working registration and welcoming thousands of attendees, he saw the scale and complexity of hospitality operations firsthand.
“I fell in love with it,” he says.
What began as a convenient elective became a clear direction, one that aligned with a university rapidly expanding its reach and reputation. Even as peers chose more traditional paths, Buckalew saw opportunity in UCF’s growth, its rising hospitality program and Orlando’s emergence as a global tourism hub.
After visiting campus, he knew where he wanted to be.
At Rosen College, Dickson pushed students to think like owners. They analyzed risk, evaluated financial decisions and examined how systems support experience at scale. Years later, Buckalew and fellow alumnus Scott Mifsud ’03 established a scholarship in Dickson’s name. It is an investment in the kind of mentorship that reshapes futures.
Dickson taught him how to analyze opportunity.
Another professor would soon ask him to seize it.
The Offer
The offer was not hypothetical. It was not a case study.
It was a business.
Peter Ricci, a Rosen College professor, owned a mystery shopping company that evaluated customer experience and operational performance for hospitality brands. Over time, he became a mentor to Buckalew, offering guidance as he began building his career.
Then one day, he asked a question Buckalew did not expect.
Would you like to buy it?
For someone early in his career, the proposition carried real weight. Payroll, contracts, client retention and financial risk were all part of the equation. It also carried something more powerful: belief.
“When someone you respect trusts you with something that big,” Buckalew says, “it changes how you see yourself.”
He said yes.
That decision became the foundation of everything that followed.
Building Momentum
The acquisition became the engine of Buckalew’s career.
What he learned in the classroom translated directly into practice. Financial discipline shaped real budgets. Operational frameworks became daily systems. Staffing, compliance and client relationships were no longer theoretical. They were essential.
Over the next decade, Buckalew expanded the business with intention. He strengthened client relationships, refined internal systems and built a team capable of supporting brands that depended on consistency and trust.
The network he built at UCF proved just as valuable.
“You’re building relationships there that you don’t even realize will matter later,” he says.
Entrepreneurship, he learned, is not defined by a single bold move. It is built through steady execution, meeting expectations, earning trust and sustaining growth over time.
Discipline. Trust. Preparation.
The same principles that shaped his education continued to guide his work.
Full Circle
Today, Buckalew serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Rosen College, mentoring students navigating the same uncertainty he once faced.
He speaks candidly about risk, the realities of leadership and what it takes to build something sustainable. Beneath the tactical advice is something deeper.
Belief.
He knows what happens when faculty invest in students, not just academically, but personally and professionally.
One professor challenged him to think differently.
Another trusted him with a company.
Both changed his life.
His philanthropy reflects that understanding. Supporting Rosen College and funding the Duncan Dickson Memorial Scholarship Fund is not about looking back. It is about expanding opportunity forward and ensuring future students encounter the same kind of mentorship that helped launch his path.
“I wouldn’t be where I am without them,” he says. “That’s not an exaggeration.”
Through the Buckalew Family Endowed Scholarship for Entrepreneurship in Hospitality, he and his family continue that cycle, fueling access, strengthening pathways and investing in the next generation of leaders.
Nearly two decades after choosing UCF, Buckalew sees a parallel between his journey and the university’s rise. Both were built on recognizing potential and having the courage to act on it.
Choosing UCF was his first leap.
Buying the business was his second.
Investing back is his third.
For David Buckalew ’05, success is not a solo achievement.
It is what happens when opportunity meets belief, and when that belief is strong enough to carry forward.
