Weinert Center and Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences (SMILES) E-Newsletter

July 2007 NEWSLETTER

To: Alumni and Friends of the Weinert Center and Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences (SMILES):

 

WAVE AND WEINERT CENTER ADVISORY BOARD UPDATES:

This past spring, InBusiness Magazine brought together a panel to speak on trends and drivers of change for construction and development in Dane County.  WAVE Board members, Mike Mathews, Rudebusch Construction; and Dan Nichols, Anchor Bank; provided valuable insight in the June issue of InBusiness, p. 41-52.

Paul Reckwardt has been making the news as TomoTherapy’s initial public stock offering became one of the largest in Wisconsin history.  Congratulations to Paul and TomoTherapy’s successes.  News releases can be viewed at the following:  http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2007/06/14/0706140338.php
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2007/06/05/0706050249.php
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/wsj/2007/07/01/0706260241.php
And in addition, TomoTherapy employees give back and radiate kindness with creation of nonprofit group, please see: 
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/biz/index.php?ntid=200094&ntpid=3

John Neis was quoted in the Capital Times regarding the major league returns of Venture Investors:  http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2007/07/09/0707090229.php

Bruce Neviaser’s Continuum Investment Partners was noted recently for its upswing in early-stage investments.  For full article, please see:  http://www.wisconsintechnologycouncil.com/newsroom/?Id=449

Retired Board Member Jan Eddy was presented with the “Seize the Day” award on June 13 at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference.  Please take the time to watch Jan Eddy’s amazing stories on both a professional and personal level. http://wan.mediasite.com/wan/Viewer?peid=b5ca5da9-1265-4405-bffc-e4c84f4d7445

Weinert Center Board Meeting
Weinert Center Board members Laurie Benson, Steve Jacobson, Aaron Kennedy, Irwin Smith, and David Walsh attended the April 26 Advisory Board meeting along with Jack Lavin via teleconference. Board members provided very useful brainstorming ideas regarding the Entrepreneurial Management MBA.  In addition, Entrepreneurship student, Andy Strunk (2007) gave a presentation regarding his Insight Methods start-up business plan, and Jane Bills and Cailin Mani (2007) presented their Italian specialty food retail concept.  Food samples provided by Jane and Cailin were enjoyed by all in attendance. They clearly created customers for life.

WAVE Board Meeting
WAVE Board members Joe Boucher, Scott Braucht, John Komives, Greg Lynch, Mike Mathews, Bruce Neviaser, John Neis, Dan Nichols, Chuck Oehler, Neil Peters-Michaud, Terry Sivesind, and Chris Hornung (Weinert Center board member), attended the May 11^th end-of-semester presentations at the Fluno Center.

The Board reviewed the following student presentations:

Cosmo’s Frozen Custard, John Halter
Hi-Mo, Jung-Eun Hong
Strategic Business Unit for Foster Jacobs & Johnson, Inc., Andrew Kotila
SonoPalp, Eric Olson, Eugene Yang, and Aga Nasalska
10H, Tom Godfrey
Sapori, Jane Bills and Cailin Mani
Insight Methods, Andy Strunk and Bob Kilzer
3Amplified Innovation, Scott Daigger
FatGopher, Todd Wendrick and Jason Loughrin

A reception followed the presentations, with awards given to: 

MBA Class of 2007 Representative, Todd Wendrick

James J. Weinert Outstanding Graduate Entrepreneurship Students, Jane Bills and Andy Strunk

Outstanding WAVE Student, Eugene Yang

ALUMNI UPDATES

The long-term success of our Entrepreneurship graduates was confirmed in a recent survey from our Wisconsin MBA Career Services Office.  According to the results, the median base salary for those Weinert Center Alumni seven years after graduation was $130,000, compared to $107,500 for all UW-Madison School of Business Master level alumni seven years post-graduation.  Detailed information can be found at the following: http://www.bus.wisc.edu/weinertcenter/news/Alumni%20Survey%20Report%20-%20Entrepreneurship-2.pdf

For a full article on the entire placement of the MBA class please see:  http://www.bus.wisc.edu/mbacs/documents/Wisconsin_MBA_2007_Employment_Report.pdf

Craig Heim (2000) is now the Licensing Manager for Start Up Companies at WARF. It is worth noting that he found out about this opportunity from a Weinert Center email.  If you are looking for talent, we are happy to send out the job description to our alumni database.

Brent Newport’s (2006) GetIPIC, last year’s winner of the Governor’s Business Plan Contest in the Information Technology track, is undergoing a name change in the hopes of better serving its customers. The plan has evolved into a ground-breaking company under a more consumer friendly name, the a.K.a Card. Brent feels the new name explains the value of the technology: “We’ve found that consumers seek privacy and the a.K.a Card name really speaks to that consumer need.” For detailed information:  http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=93269

Susan Pschorr (2001) is now Director of Human Resources at Suttle Straus in Waunakee, WI.

Sara VanderLind (2006) has accepted a position as Associate Product Manager at Fiskars Brands.

Governor’s Plan Competition:  Extract Systems (a 1998 WAVE start-up) won the Information Technology category at the 2007 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest.  Other finalists with WAVE ties included:  Tom Godfrey (2007) 10H Inc. (microscope sample handling), and Robert Creighton (2007) WindLift LLC (wind energy for pumping of water).  For a complete list of winners: http://www.wisconsintechnologycouncil.com/Newsroom/index.aspx?ID=443

We would like to keep you posted on other alumni news. Please let us know if you see other Weinert Center or SMILES alumni in the news and we will include the information in future updates. Please send any updates or story links to: WeinertCenter@bus.wisc.edu

FACULTY NEWS

Phil Kim's class pays off!  An undergraduate student project with a fledgling local company dealing with fishing lures received results and made the news.  For full article, please see: http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/wsj/2007/05/27/0705270269.php

Anne Miner co-led a special UW Entrepreneurship Research Conference in May with researchers from around the world all looking at how different institutions affect entrepreneurial behavior and unintended outcomes of entrepreneurship.   Jon Eckhardt presented a paper on how inventions given away may actually help for-profit inventors.

Miner and Entrepreneurship doctoral students presented a paper on the chances that a university spin-off will tend to produce additional spin-offs.  The World Affairs and Global Economy program at UW sponsored the conference.

Entrepreneurship doctoral student Yan Gong successfully defended his dissertation and will join the University of California-Irvine in September as an Assistant Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship. Doctoral student Anthony Sadler successfully defended his dissertation proposal related to immigrant entrepreneurs in May.

SUPPORT

We would like to thank all of you who have once again given of your time, treasures, and talent to support the specializations.  The specializations’ successes are driven by your efforts.  We would especially like to thank those listed below for providing financial support over the past several months:

Craig Andler (2003 Weinert Center Alum)
Adam Bock (1999 Weinert Center Alum)
Bruce Milne Family (Friend of the Center)
Brent Newport (2006 Weinert Center Alum)
Whitney Robertson (2006 Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences Alum)

Your continued support is greatly appreciated.  Anyone wishing to financially support the programs can do so at the following:

Entrepreneurship Program:  http://www.bus.wisc.edu/weinertcenter/support.asp
SMILES Program: http://www.bus.wisc.edu/SMILES/support

Best wishes,