Hospitality Business Management: - College of Business ...

B u s i n e s s P l a n
Third Annual WSU Business Plan
Competition Offers Students
Opportunities to Shine
The Honors go to…
Five WSU student teams took home $15,000 in
awards during the third annual WSU Business
Plan Competition held April 7–8 in Pullman.
The competition allowed 27 WSU student teams
and 86 students the opportunity to present their
business plans to a panel of judges from the
business community.
Hosted by the WSU Center for Entrepreneurial
Studies in the College of Business, the competition
comprised a five-league preliminary round,
with the winner of each league advancing to
the final round. Each team gave a 15-minute
presentation followed by an intense 20 minutes
of questions from the judges. The written and
presented business plans were then evaluated
on content, thoroughness, and feasibility.
Final round competition judge Brooke Randall,
of Unitus Global Microfinance Accelerator
(’02 Business Administration/Finance), says he
was thrilled to be part of the competition. “As
a fairly recent alum, to come back and provide
constructive feedback to students who are very
passionate about their business program is a
great thing.”
The business plan competition “gives students
a very good sense of real world practical skills.
It’s more than putting together a plan, but going
out and pitching it to potential investors and
experienced executives. It’s a great experience
for them to have outside of the classroom.”
First place honors in the competition were awarded
to graduate material science and engineering student
Colin Merimann and MBA student Alisha
(Runolfson) Merriman pictured with CB Dean
Eric Spangenberg. They proposed a solution to
multi-material welding through explosive bonding, a
process by which metals are welded together through
explosions.
“I’m very excited, very overwhelmed,” says
Runolfson. “It is nice to show I can take a product
from start to finish. It is very important to the industry
to have skills like this.”
Merimann and Runolfson plan to continue their
studies at WSU, and both expect to graduate in May
2007. After graduation, they plan to continue with
their business plans under the name MERC. The two
were married in June in Spokane, Washington.
Second place winners were Ahmad Bayomy
(’06 Bioengineering), Sepideh Zolfaghari (’06
Bioengineering), and Nick Rapagnani (’06 Business
Administration/Business Law) of BERZ for their manual
seat-elevating wheelchair.
18 WSU College of Business