{"id":64555,"date":"2022-04-11T08:05:36","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T13:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=64555"},"modified":"2022-04-11T08:05:38","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T13:05:38","slug":"freshman-wins-faulkner-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=64555","title":{"rendered":"Freshman wins Faulkner Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCow Fences,\u201d an entrepreneurial business plan created by Ethan McPherson, won first place at the 2022 Faulkner Challenge at Fort Hays State University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McPherson,\na freshman from Manhattan, took home the $6,000 first-place cash award for his\npresentation. McPherson\u2019s business was built on the concept of a virtual\nfarmer\u2019s meat market and will connect beef and pork producers directly to\nconsumers. Future plans include expansion of the digital market to the full range\nof food products available at a traditional farmer\u2019s market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nFaulkner Challenge is a business plan competition designed to develop\nentrepreneurial imagination and innovation in university students, regardless\nof major or interests. It is open to any new venture in the conceptual, seed,\nor startup stages and to students from any community college or university in\nKansas, whether public or private. Teams are evaluated on their ability to\nclearly identify a market opportunity, value proposition, and sustainable\ncompetitive advantage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

FHSU\nalum Kevin Faulkner established an endowed fund for\nthe W.R. and Yvonne Robbins College of Business and Entrepreneurship business\nplan challenge that now bears his name. He supports the challenge in many ways,\nincluding serving as a judge for the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was a student, there was no competition like this, but I\ndid participate in Model United Nations, debate, and forensics,\u201d Faulkner said.\n\u201cAs a result, I learned that hands-on experience bridges education to the real\nworld.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsecond-place $3,000 prize went to SkySprayers, a group of five students whose\nplan centered around building and patenting an autonomous lightweight drone for\nfarmers to use in spraying their fields. The team used a detailed, animated\nvideo to demonstrate how their mobile system enabled their drone to fly to\nspraying missions, return to base and re-supply, and change batteries between\nflights. Team members were Tyler Preisser, Chance Fuhrman, John Gamez-Ramos,\nWyatt Cyr, and Kole West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winning\nthe $1,000 third-place award was Vitality Thrift, a team made up of Easton\nBradbury, Caitlin Leiker, and Faith Little. The Vitality Thrift group\u2019s concept\nwas to create an online thrift store where part of the profit is returned to a\nnot-for-profit organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nFaulkner Challenge is executed in three stages that proceed from submission and\nevaluation of a written business plan, to a 10-minute oral presentation\nsemifinal round, to a \u201cmoney\u201d round of the final three teams. Each team\nprovides a more elaborated, 15-minute presentation for the finals and is\nsubject to more detailed questions and answers from a panel of expert judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ntotal of 13 teams of Fort Hays State students submitted entries for\nconsideration, and a three-person committee selected eight to make oral\npresentations. One team withdrew before the presentations, leaving seven to vie\nfor the finals. Judges for the competition included experts from Kansas, Texas,\nUtah, California, and Washington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr.\nRick Edgeman, director of FHSU\u2019s Center for Entrepreneurship who is in charge\nof the challenge, said that all the teams chosen to give oral presentations\nbrought great ideas. The judges asked questions at the end of the seven\npresentations and provided feedback to the students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\ndifference is found in how the teams respond to the advice from the judges\n(during the first round of presentations),\u201d Edgeman said. \u201cThe judges press the\ncontestants on issues, including finance, insurance, marketing, and what it\nreally takes to develop a prototype.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nthree finalists were allowed to tweak their presentations before the finals.\nThe judges commented that they were impressed with how McPherson took heed of\nthe advice he received following his initial presentation held a week before the\nfinals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McPherson\nacknowledged that the entire process has been a rewarding, learning experience\nfor him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis\nwas a difficult challenge, and I spent a lot of sleepless nights working hard\non it,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were a lot of things I didn\u2019t know when I started, but\nI spoke to several experts from around the country and built a great team. They\nhelped me become the best founder and organizer I could be for this company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now,\nMcPherson and the Faulkner Challenge runner-up team will compete at the\nregional level. He and three members of SkySprayers (Preisser, Fuhrman, and\nGamez-Ramos) have entered the Regnier Venture Creation Challenge at the\nUniversity of Missouri-Kansas City. That challenge features several divisions\nand a total of $88,000 in prizes. Semifinalists for that competition will be\nannounced later this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edgeman\nsaid that students benefit immensely from participating in such premium\nexperiential learning opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nmoney is a benefit, of course,\u201d he said. \u201cThe greatest value in competing in\nsuch challenges, however, is providing students with a venue to comprehensively\nconsider what it takes to start a business \u2013 resources needed, legal and\nfinancial considerations, intellectual property creation and protection, marketing,\nand more. Then, to have those plans scrutinized by experts helps provide\nsignificant and useful feedback aimed at helping teams advance and realize\ntheir ambitions.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following\nis a list of the top three finishers in this year\u2019s Faulkner Challenge and\ntheir hometowns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First place<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethan\nMcPherson, Manhattan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second place<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tyler\nPreisser, Buhler<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chance\nFuhrman, Bronson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John\nGamez-Ramos, Ellis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyatt\nCyr, Clyde<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kole\nWest, Thornton, Colo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third place<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easton\nBradbury, Colwich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caitlyn\nLeiker, Hays\n\nFaith Little, Holton\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS \u201cCow Fences,\u201d an entrepreneurial business plan created by Ethan McPherson, won first place at the 2022 Faulkner Challenge at Fort Hays State… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64556,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64555\/revisions\/64556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}