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2014 Mayo Business Plan Competition

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On April 9th, SolarKick took first place in the 3rd Annual Mayo Business Plan Competition at The College of New Jersey. Barber By Touch earned 2nd place and TCNJBudget earned 3rd place, out of 22 participating teams which drew students from 6 TCNJ Schools. SolarKick — with 2 engineering students and 2 business students — impressed the judges with their working prototype of a cell phone case composed of a unique combination of green energy charging materials that can charge a device without the use of a wall charger.

See “Mayo Business Plan won by solar iPhone panels,” in The Signal, .

See “Mayo B-Plan team generates winning green energy solutions,” on TCNJ website, April 28, 2014.

 

2014 MBPC SolarKick
SolarKick (l-r): Eric Blow, Gregory Fitzgerald, Luke Capritti, and Steven Leming
MBPC BarberByTouch
Barber By Touch: SBDC Dir. Lorraine Allen, Karthik Sunkesula, Ashwin Tatikola, Peter Okoh and Prof. Carla Fallone
2014 MPBC TCNJBudget
TCNJBudget: Dean Keep, Alexander Pacione, Steven Schrum, Howard Telson and Chad Berma
Semi-finalist teams:

Team Name Members
Barber By Touch Karthik Sunkesula
Sophomore, Economics
Ashwin Tatikola
Sophomore, Finance
Peter Okoh
Sophomore, Biomedical Engineering
Gainer Grub Daniel Balevski
Senior, Marketing
Christian Balevski
Junior, Interdisciplinary Business
Matthew Scarpardine
Junior, Marketing
Jonathan Chen
Senior, Finance
JuiceBox Josephine D’Amico
Senior, Finance
Anthony Cocuzza
Junior, Economics
Matt Dwyer
Senior, Finance
SCH Sean Casey
Senior, Finance
Chris Hillman
Senior, Management
SolarKick Gregory Fitzgerald
Senior, Finance
Luke Capritti
Junior, Mechanical Engineering
Eric Blow
Junior, Electrical Engineering
Steven Leming
Senior, Accountancy
TCNJBudget Howard Telson
Senior, Accountancy
Steven Schrum
Senior, Finance
Alexander Pacione
Senior, Accountancy
Chad Berman
Senior, English
Judges
Numerous alumni have been involved with the Mayo Business Plan Competition over the past several years, serving as judges at various stages of the competition. The following are the judges for the semi-finals and finals of the 2014 Mayo Business Plan Cometition at The College of New Jersey:

Joseph Haddock ’97 Joseph Haddock is a Director responsible for Operational Risk Management at Annaly Management Company LLC. Prior to joining Annaly in 2011, Mr. Haddock spent 13 years at Bloomberg LP in various people, project and product management roles. He has taught finance courses at both Rider University and The College of New Jersey. Mr. Haddock is a CFA Charterholder and co-chairs the SIFMA AMF Operational Risk Committee. He graduated in 1997 with a degree in finance from The College of New Jersey and in 2006 with an MBA from Cornell University, S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management.
Christopher Jones ’90 Christopher Jones is a co-founder and CFO of Durante Rentals, his fourth venture since graduating TCNJ in 1990. Founded in 2009 with his 2 partners John and Anthony Durante, together they have built a company with 4 locations in the Bronx, Westchester and Queens with 37 employees. Durante Rentals made the 2013 Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing privately held companies in America. Chris was also awarded the 2013 Westchester Small Business CFO of the Year. In 2006, Chris received a 40 Under 40 Rising Star Award from the County of Westchester where he met his future business partner John Durante, also an award recipient. Chris is a competitive athlete, he wrestled at TCNJ, and is a 3rd degree brown belt in Judo.
Mary Lauria ’86 Mary Lauria is the VP, Global Talent Management at Johnson & Johnson. In this capacity, Mary has responsibility for Talent Acquisition, Leadership Development & Learning, Assessment, Succession and Talent Mobility. Previously, Mary has held both talent specialist and HR generalist roles at Pepsi, Bank of America, Wyeth and Constellation Energy. She is a 1986 graduate of The College of New Jersey.
Stacy Mattia Stacy Mattia is a Senior Banker and SVP in Middle Marketing Banking for Chase Bank. She has 23 years of banking experience, consulting with her business clients’ around their credit, treasury and international banking needs. Stacy is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the MIDJersey Chamber of Commerce. She was a guest judge for the Semi-final presentations of the Mayo Business Plan Competition on March 19.
Morayea Pindziak ’99 Morayea Pindziak is the Vice President of Marketing for The Agency Inside, a full-service customer engagement agency. In this role, Morayea is responsible for managing and promoting the agency’s brand. Prior to joining The Agency Inside, Morayea was the Marketing Director for an enterprise software company specializing in the publishing industry. She graduated from The College of New Jersey in 1999 with a degree in marketing.
Eric Szabo ’97 Eric Szabo is the Chief Risk Officer for Annaly Management Company LLC. Mr. Szabo is CFA Charterholder and acquired the Professional Risk Manager Designation from the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association in 2002. Prior to joining Annaly in April of 2004, Mr. Szabo was analyst and trader at TimesSquare Capital Management focused on real estate related securities. Mr. Szabo received a Master of Science in Finance from Boston College in 2001 and is a 1997 graduate of The College of New Jersey.

Goal

The Mayo Business Plan Competition is designed to increase student appreciation for the challenges associated with developing a viable business offering (product or service) while, through an iterative process, recognizing those students best able to articulate a plan that addresses these challenges. In recognition of both the time involved and the difficulty of the task, the competition also provides a suitable award for the successful teams.

Participants

All TCNJ students are invited to participate. Students with ideas that might translate into viable business products or services can come from virtually any School and discipline. The competition is not associated with a particular course. Each team must be comprised of no less than two or more than four current TCNJ students. Upon request an effort will be made to assist any non-business student looking to add a business student to their team (e.g., a student familiar with income statements, marketing, etc.) This assistance notwithstanding, establishing and managing the team remains a student task. Students are encouraged to seek mentoring from a variety of sources (e.g., alumni, TCNJ Small Business Development Center, personal contacts, etc.) Here again, however, the final business plan must be the sole work and responsibility of members of the student team. The competition presumes the teams’ ability to independently determine what constitutes a solid business plan; no instruction will be provided and students are left to their own resourcefulness.

Process

The competition will consist of three phases:

Phase 1: Team submits an initial business plan to be evaluated by professional. (Maximum plan length is 20 pages, double-spaced 11 or 12 font, including all appendixes and supporting evidence.)

Phase 2: A maximum of six teams are invited to revise the initial business plan and give a 20 minute presentation.

Phase 3: Three teams are invited to revise their plans and make final presentations (maximum 30 minutes each) from which a winning team is selected.

View a sample Business Plan Outline here.

2014 MBPC Timetable:

  • 12/8 Students notify Dean Keep by registration form of their intent to compete
  • 1/29 Written business plan due (sent to Dean Keep via email)
  • 2/3 Plans go out to judges
  • 2/13 Judges’ evaluations due
  • 2/19 Six teams notified that they made the semi-finals. All teams receive feedback from judges
  • 3/19 Semi-final competition
  • 4/9 Finals Competition

Competition Awards

Prizes: The total prize money for 2014 Mayo Business Plan Competition = $30,000. A top prize of $16,500 will be awarded to the winning team with prizes of $9,000 and $4,500 for second and third place teams respectively.

Sponsoring Donors: The School of Business thanks Professor Herbert B. Mayo for establishing the Mayo Business Plan Competition and Eric Szabo ’97 for his generous support.

Information Session

The Mayo Business Plan Competition information session took place on September 18, during the 3rd Wednesday Alumni Entrepreneur Panel. TCNJ Alumni who have formed successful businesses shared stories about taking chances, seeking investors, occasional set-backs and even appearing on ABC’s Shark Tank:

  • Shelly Hewson ‘80 is President of Hewson Landscape Inc., a commercial and industrial landscape contracting firm. She was named to NJBiz’s Best 50 Women in Business for 2013.
  • Joe Gesualdo ‘11 left his job in finance, taught himself web development and co-founded a technology startup.
  • Gregg Hollmann ‘93 left a six-figure job in finance to pursue his dreams of operating a mobile DJ entertainment company on a full-time basis.
  • Chris Hindley ‘04 spent the better part of his early career as a Brand Strategist, supporting and helping companies launch products and create their identities in the market. 15 months ago, HoodiePillow’s social media soft launch went viral overnight.

 

Contact

School of Business

Business Building, Room 114
The College of New Jersey
P.O. Box 7718
2000 Pennington Rd.
Ewing, NJ 08628

609.771.3064
business@tcnj.edu