University of Arkansas Teams Take Three Top Places in Tri-State Reynolds Cup

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Members of the BiologicsMD team, from left to right, Robyn Goforth, Misty Stevens, and Michael Thomas, and members of the InnerVision team, Anoop Prasanna, Elizabeth Slape, Annelie Reckling, Jeff Veltkamp, and Bryon Western.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas teams took three of the top four places in the Tri-State Donald W. Reynolds Cup business plan competition held in Las Vegas, Nev., May 17-19.

The teams had previously qualified for the competition at the Arkansas Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup in April, along with universities who won respective competitions in Oklahoma and Nevada.

InnerVision LLC’s first place win in the graduate division earned it $25,000. The team included five students: Elizabeth Slape, Jeff Veltkamp, Annelie Reckling and Anoop Prasanna, all in the Master of Business Administration program at the Sam M. Walton College of Business; and Bryon Western, a master’s student in the College of Engineering microelectronics-photonics program. Their faculty adviser was Carol Reeves, associate professor of management, who received $2,500. InnerVision’s trademarked product, the Smart Turbine Blade, enables power-generation facilities to radically change their maintenance programs and save billions of dollars each year on interval-based maintenance.

Second place in the graduate division went to BiologicsMD, which was awarded $15,000. Misty Stevens, COO of Biologics MD, also won the elevator pitch competition and an additional $1,000. Reeves, who is also holder of the Cecil and Gwendolyn Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship and this team’s adviser as well, received $2,500. The team includes Paul Mlakar, Michael Thomas and Stevens, all students in the Walton College managerial Master of Business Administration program; and Robyn Goforth, a research professor in biological sciences who is earning a Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship. The BiologicsMD team developed a business plan for a patent-pending, pre-clinical, osteoporosis medication trademarked as OsteoFlor.

Arkansas Auto-Fluff took first place and $25,000 in the Tri-State undergraduate competition. Arkansas Auto-Fluff is a proposed company that specializes in the recycling of end of life plastics from the waste stream of the auto industry. Walton College students include Mason Miller, Greg Savage, Ashley Giles and Alex Spinks. The team was mentored by Mark Zweig, Walton College management department executive-in-residence. Arkansas Auto-Fluff also won first place and $20,000 in the Arkansas Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup.

Zweig said, “These students had what it took to win. They each filled a distinct role on their team. They were incredibly open to feedback, never getting defensive. And they worked their tails off until the last minute.”

Reeves said, “These wins at the Tri-State are a wonderful way to cap off the most successful year ever for our graduate teams. InnerVision has also taken first place at two other national competitions. BiologicsMD is the only team in the world ever to win both the Rice University business plan competition and the ‘Super Bowl’ of business plan competitions, the University of Texas Global Moot Corp. Both teams’ accomplishments have exceeded our wildest expectations.

Including the $25,000 InnerVision won at the Tri-State competition, the team has won more than $75,000 in business plan competitions, including first place in the technology division at the McGinnis Venture Competition, Carnegie Mellon University; third place and first place in the elevator pitch at the University of San Francisco International business plan competition; first place for the NASA Earth/Science Engineering Innovation Prize at the Rice University business plan competition; and first place and the AT&T Innovation Award at the Arkansas Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup graduate division.

Veltkamp said, “The technology is very promising and has generated a lot of interest — most importantly, from potential customers. We fully expect the technology to go commercial. The team put in a lot of long hours and hard work to get where we are but it was truly a community effort. Without the support of the Reynolds Foundation and Arkansas Capital Corporation, we could not have done it. We could never give enough credit to Dr. Reeves. She collected a group of local subject matter experts who gave generously of their time and expertise to help make InnerVision and the University of Arkansas extremely competitive with some of the finest schools in the world.”

Including the Tri-State second place prize, BiologicsMD has won more than $124,000 in cash and more than $475,000 in in-kind services (such as legal and consulting services) and investments through business plans competitions across the country. In addition to taking the top spots at Rice University and the Moot Corp competitions, the team won first place at the Cardinal Challenge at the University of Louisville and the Spirit of Enterprise MBA business plan competition at the University of Cincinnati and second place at the Arkansas Governor’s Cup.

Mlakar said, “We are proceeding forward with the BiologicsMD business plan we presented. We’ve submitted applications for grants from the Small Business Innovation Research award with the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. And we are scheduled to present to a couple of angel investors soon. We will invest a large percent of our winnings in the company to begin operations.

“Dr. Reeves puts her heart into the success of her students,” Mlakar said. “She provided us with every opportunity to learn, improve and enhance our business plan. She deserves the credit. We also greatly benefited from input from some of the previous years’ winning teams.”

A Walton College team took first place in the graduate competition in the 2009 Tri-State Donald W. Reynolds Cup. The Tears for Life team members included three students pursuing a managerial M.B.A. — Jared Greer, Bessie Williams and Chris Elizer — and an honors undergraduate student, Jordan Greer. Their business proposed a test for screening breast cancer using a woman’s tears.