Winners for the 2011 Riata Business Plan Competition announced

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Styro Insulation is this year's winner of Oklahoma State University's Riata Business Plan Competition and $25,000. The team consisted of OSU students (from left to right) Lynsie Morris, Jodie Navarre, Max Whitemyer and Cale Hyer.

Styro Insulation, a business that would take discarded polystyrene (styrofoam) from retail establishments and use it to make a superior home and commercial building insulation product, nabbed the $25,000 top prize in Oklahoma State University’s second annual Riata Business Plan Competition for student entrepreneurs.

A total of more than $40,000 was awarded to help winning teams finance their plans and turn them into viable business ventures during a banquet April 30 on the campus of OSU. The Riata Center for Entrepreneurship in the OSU Spears School of Business launched a campus-wide competition in December with 97 teams of OSU students.

The “Sweet 16” presented business plans to a group of successful venture investors from Oklahoma, Texas and Washington D.C. on April 29 and a “Final Four” was named. Teams were critiqued on the strength of their concept, the marketability of their product, the economic feasibility of their company, their planned business operations, the management of their team, and their capability to receive financing. The four finalists were judged by a separate pool of distinguished entrepreneurs. The winners were:

First, $25,000 -- Styro Insulation, a business that would take discarded polystyrene (styrofoam) from retail establishments and use it to make a superior home and commercial building insulation product; team members: Max Whitemyer, entrepreneurship senior; Lynsie Morris, entrepreneurship student; Jodie Navarre, Master of Entrepreneurship candidate; Cale Hyer, entrepreneurship student.

Second, $10,000 – CleanNG, a business of advanced performance products for natural gas vehicles; team members: Matt Villareal, entrepreneurship senior; Michael Tate, 2010 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship; Jacob Crawley, Master of Entrepreneurship candidate.

Third, $5,000 -- Cold Plasma LLC, a company planning to market a new medical sterilization device; team members: Mariena Hargrave, MBA candidate and Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Scholar; Michael Kavalier, MBA candidate and CIE Scholar; Annie Nsafoah, Master of International Agriculture candidate and CIE Scholar.

Fourth, $1,000 -- Bold Step LLC, which proposes to provide personal safety instruction and information – both in person and online – to universities; team member: Kyle Eastham, Master of Entrepreneurship candidate and CIE Scholar.

An additional $1,000 prize went to MaxQ for having the best technology-based venture; team members included engineering students Saravan Kumar Shanmugavelayudham, Ashwin Ravi, Balaji Jayakuma, Shoaib Shaikh, Ryan Jenkinson and Brandon Hawthorne. The team intends to give researchers access to automated, reduced gravity environments so they can conduct space experiments on earth.

Another $1,000 went to Full Cellar Farm for having the best social venture. Kip Kelley, the company’s founder, proposed a unique, franchisable model of community-supported agriculture that will offer locally-grown fresh vegetables, cut flowers and free-range poultry to customers in the greater Washington, D.C. area.

The “Final Four” judges included Steve Irby of Stillwater Designs, Tiffany Sewell-Howard of The Charles Machine Works Inc., MVL Prasad of Artex Inc., Ronald Siegenthaler of EXTA Technologies Inc. and Charity Call, Russ Teubner of HostBridge Technology, Carl Thoma of Thoma Bravo, and Lew Ward of Ward Petroleum.

For more information about the 2011 Riata Business Plan Competition, call 405-744-7871 or visit http://entrepreneurship.okstate.edu/bpcompetition.