In many ways, HSA is the direct result of a College rule that no student living in a Harvard dormitory may operate a business out of his or her room.

Though not intended specifically to help HSA, the rule has given the company a virtual monopoly in providing both on-campus services and business experience, says Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III. Over the years, Epps has allowed few exceptions to the rule, but he says he recently granted an exception for the Organization of Harvard Spirit, an insignia agency.

Harvard officials enacted the rule "so that the University would not be associated with the running of businesses which were failing at an alarming rate," the dean says.

In the early 1970s, however, HSA itself sponsored many failing student-run businesses. The company had a running deficit--losing a combined total of $100,000 during fiscal 1973-4. In that year, HSA hired its first full-time general manager, Bradlee T. Howe '63.

"It was clear that [HSA] couldn't continue to survive unless it turned a modest surplus," Howe says, adding that board members had decided that HSA needed "stronger central control, but hopefully not overbearing central control." Howe has served on the Board of Directors since 1972.

Michael F. Cronin '75, a former HSA president, says that when he first took over he was charged with the duty of finding safe new businesses that would make money and provide jobs for students. Entrepreneurialism was still encouraged, but was kept under greater control by Howe, Cronin says.

Also at this point HSA for the first time received financial assistance from the College so that the company could continue operating.

The same type of careful decision-making policy instituted by Howe has been pursued by the two general managers who succeeded him. The two managers cut down the number of agencies from a peak of 32 in 1972 to the current 12.

Spruance, the current general manager, has seen the company's cumulative balance sheet reach positive figures.

Spruance could not be contacted for this story.

Now that HSA is back in the black, students, alumni and Harvard officials associated with HSA are calling for a looser atmosphere in which there will be more avenues open to student entrepreneurialism.

Robert S. Klepper '87, a former sales manager at HSA said that management "really tried hard" to implement his idea for a new agency called "We-Haul," which would have transported student belongings between Cambridge and the New York City area.

But Klepper, who currently works at Bain & Co., a management consulting firm in Boston, said that though Spruance and others "had the right attitude, they weren't supporting that attitude 100 percent."

The business never became a reality because of insurance problems. Spruance did not allow Klepper and his friends, Bill Ackman '88 and Lionel Leventhal '87, to present their idea to the Board of Directors, which makes final decisions on new agencies and expenditures.

"There should be a special procedure whereby a Harvard student who has an idea for a business project can present it to the HSA board," says Ackman, adding, "Once you systematize it, it'll make it easier."