UA Walton College Graduate Students Take Top Governor’s Cup Awards

At this year’s awards luncheon, held Friday, April 29, at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, Walton College students in the Master of Business Administration program took the first-place $20,000, second-place $10,000 and third-place $5,000 awards. The second-place team also won the $5,000 graduate Oracle Technology Award.

Walton College Dean Doyle Z. Williams said: “One of our primary objectives is to help students learn how to put classroom learning into practice in the real world. We are very proud of the winners and other finalist teams and the business plans they have created.”

Carol Reeves, a Walton College associate professor of management and holder of the Cecil and Gwen Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship, sponsored all three winning graduate teams and was invited to address the crowd of more than 1,000. She said, “This is a great opportunity for our students and for business in Arkansas. All three winners are actually starting these businesses. I’ve been involved in this competition since its inception, and the caliber of students and their businesses keeps getting better and better.”

Students from Harding University won the first-place $20,000 undergraduate prize. University of Arkansas at Fort Smith students took the second-place $10,000 award and the Oracle $5,000 undergraduate Technology Award. The third-place $5,000 award went to students from the Arkansas Tech University.

The Governor’s Cup business plan competition is designed to encourage students of Arkansas’ universities and colleges to act upon their ideas and talents to produce tomorrow’s businesses. A total of $104,000 was awarded in this year’s competition.

Walton College alumnus Scott Ford, president and chief executive officer of ALLTEL Corp., announced the winners, who were also congratulated by Gov. Mike Huckabee; Virgil L. Miller Jr., senior vice president of Metropolitan National Bank and president of Arkansas Capital Corp.; and Fred W. Smith, chairman of the board of trustees of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. Smith, the event keynote speaker, gave an overview of the life of entrepreneur Donald W. Reynolds. Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller also spoke.

The winning graduate team, Earthgard, presented a plan to sell cost-effective, high-quality water-treatment filters using patented technology to small municipalities and farm operations. Team members include MBA students Matt Carroll, Jeff Denman, Jon Massey, and Alicia Owens.

Owens, team vice president for finance/accounting and sales, said, “Participating in this competition was the most valuable experience of my MBA program. It has challenged me to pull together everything I’ve learned. I have realized how hard it is to raise venture capital.”

Second place went to BandGap Protectives, which is a company created to manufacture and market silicon crystalline nanoparticles featuring a patent-pending ultraviolet-ray-trapping technology. Team members include Marie Josee Le Jour McDonagh, Kyle Stacy and Max Bachman. This team also won the Oracle Technology Award.

Trager Technologies, the third-place graduate winner, is a business that is revolutionizing locomotive diesel exhaust design with a patent-pending Trager Turbo ScreenT. Jonathan Thompson, Siddarth Kak and Sarah Jones worked with technology consultant John Trager to start this business.

Kak said, “Being in this competition has given me great confidence. Standing up in front of the judges who are asking all kinds of questions about your business is a rewarding experience.”

Other University of Arkansas finalists in the graduate competition included Ampere-X (team members Heather Sprandel and Johnathan McIllwain and faculty advisor Renee Clay, co-operative coordinator); Rubicon Inc. (team members Dustin Applegate, Justin Jones, Brant Ward, Matt Garrett & Ryan Scott, faculty advisory Carol Reeves); and TraitmasterT (team member Martin William H. Akins and faculty sponsor Dub Ashton, associate professor of marketing).

Reeves said, “All three top teams have recently competed in national business plan competitions and represented the college and the University of Arkansas very favorably. In fact, they have gained an excellent reputation in these competitions.” The Earthgard team competed in the New Venture Championship at the University of Oregon, accompanied by management associate professor Jon Johnson. They finished first in the flight and fourth overall in the competition. The team was invited to compete in the internationally renowned MOOT CORP® 2005 competition, the “Super Bowl” of business plan competitions to be held May 4-7 at the University of Texas at Austin.

BandGap Protectives competed in the NU Venture World Competition at the University of Nebraska. They were also one of five finalists selected from the “elevator pitch” competition to make a full presentation to real venture capitalists at Wake Forest University where they tied for second place with Brigham Young University.

Trager Technologies was chosen from 130 entrants in the Rice University Business Plan competition to be one of the 36 semi-finalists.

The Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup is managed annually by the Capital Resource Corp., an affiliate company of The Arkansas Capital Corporation Group, in association with the Arkansas Small Business Development Center, Arkansas Department of Economic Development, Arkansas Development Finance Authority, and the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority.

The Governor’s Award competition began with 60 teams from Arkansas’ four-year colleges and universities. Final judges included Mike Smith, MS Partners; Wayne Britt, retired, Tyson Foods Inc.; Gus Vratsinas, Vratsinas Construction; John Steuri, Fund for Arkansas’ Future; Christopher Brengard, U.S. Renal Care; Jerry Adams, Acxiom Corp.; Margaret McEntire, Candy Bouquet International; Ewell R. Welch, Arkansas Farm Bureau; Hank Kelley, Flake Kelly Commercial; and Keith Henkel, Insight Ecosystems.

In the 2004 graduate competition, Walton College students received the first place $20,000, second place $10,000 and third place $5,000 awards. A fourth Walton College graduate team received the $5,000 SBC Technology Award. A Walton College undergraduate took the third place $5,000.

In the 2003 graduate competition, Walton College students received the first place $20,000, second place $10,000 and third place $5,000 awards. In the undergraduate competition, Walton College students won the first place $20,000 and the second place $10,000 awards. Students from Harding University took the third place $5,000.

In the 2002 competition (in which graduate and undergraduate students competed together), five Walton College graduate students took first and third place in the top business plans in the Governor’s Awards for Entrepreneurial Development, winning over $51,000 in prize money. A student from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock took second place.

In 2001, three Walton College students won first place for $30,000, and one student won second place for $20,000 in the competition for their business plans. In addition, five of the six 2001 finalist teams were Walton College and University of Arkansas students.

Reeves added: “These business plan competitions do a lot to promote entrepreneurship here in Arkansas. This win will be so motivating to our incoming MBA class. The Walton College is forming many partnerships on campus to encourage more entrepreneurial thinking among our students.”