Walton College Graduate Students Take Top Governor's Cup Awards

LAS VEGAS — Students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas won big last week in Las Vegas, but not by gambling. MerchantEyes LLC, the name of the students’ fictional company, took first place in the first Tri-State Donald W. Reynolds Cup business plan competition, earning $25,000.

Competition for the Tri-State Donald W. Reynolds Cup represents the pinnacle of three statewide business plan competitions in Arkansas, Nevada and Oklahoma. The top two undergraduate and graduate teams from each state competed for cash awards totaling $90,000.

The Reynolds Cup is designed to encourage students to act upon their ideas and talents in order to produce tomorrow's businesses. The competition is aimed at simulating the real-world process in which entrepreneurs create a business plan to solicit start-up funds from potential investors. Students involved in the competition gain access to networks of successful entrepreneurs, lenders and investors, team-building opportunities, business-planning skills, and media exposure.

The competition began in 2001 as a state competition. Since 2001, more than 1,500 students representing 48 universities and colleges throughout Arkansas, Nevada, and Oklahoma have participated. The three states in the competition are those in which the late media owner, Donald W. Reynolds, had most of his business operations. Winners of each competition are encouraged to start their profit-making ventures with substantial cash prizes and technical assistance.

First place winners in the undergraduate and graduate divisions won $25,000, second place won $15,000, and third place winners did not receive cash awards. Faculty advisers of the first and second place teams received $2,500. Each team and its school also received a trophy.

In the Arkansas Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup, Walton College students in the graduate program took the first-place $20,000, second-place $10,000 awards and third-place $5,000. The winners were announced at a luncheon held April 17 at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock. A team from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock took the Innovation Award for $5,000.

Carol Reeves, a Walton College associate professor of management and holder of the Cecil and Gwen Cupp Applied Professorship in Entrepreneurship, sponsored the first-, second- and third-place winning graduate teams.

Walton College Dean Dan Worrell 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 the work they put into creating these exciting business plans.”

The first-place graduate team at the statewide competition, Protrom Medical, included Kellen Frank, J.D. Weathers, Michael Smith and Luke Weiler, all master’s students in the accounting program. Their business plan proposed an innovative medical system to benefit human health. Their first product will be a P.A.C. system, which is a temporary abdominal closure device. They worked with the Bioventures at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences on the plan.

The second-place graduate team was MerchantEyes LLC, a digital solution to the current manual system of tracking and validating the $2 billion spent annually on in-store retail merchandising activities. The team included Kristin Huber, Karen McSpadden, April Seggebruch and Stan Zylowski, all students in the Master of Business Administration program.

The third place winner was TrackLife Systems. The team included Jennifer Liguori and Bo Broschetti, both master’s students in accounting, and Rahul Rajgarhia, a doctoral student in the College of Engineering. Their business plan proposed a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive component life prediction software program for fossil fuel power plants.

Rajgarhia said, “This software will make electric power plants more cost effective and reduce the amount of fuel they need to generate electricity.”

Walton College teams have won the graduate competition for the past five years, and have also earned many of the second and third place and innovation awards.

Reeves added: “These business plan competitions do a lot to promote entrepreneurship here in Arkansas. This win will be so motivating to our incoming graduate classes. The Walton College is developing many programs to encourage more entrepreneurial thinking among our students.”