High School Students to Explore Business World through UT Summer Program

KNOXVILLE—Thirty-two high school students from the Southeast will learn about office etiquette, personal finance, the business world and potential careers at a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, summer camp that begins Thursday.

2012 BETS class

The Business Education for Talented Students (BETS) program, which runs through June 22, allows students from diverse communities to explore career and educational opportunities in the world of business. The program, which is free to students, is in its sixth year.

Students will take part in team-building activities such as a ropes course and take field trips to Alcoa, PepsiCo, PetSafe, the Knoxville mayor’s office and accounting firm Dixon Hughes in Asheville.

While on campus, the students, from Tennessee and Georgia, will hear from faculty members and business experts. They will learn about various majors offered in UT’s College of Business Administration, including accounting, finance, marketing, economics, human resource management, public administration, enterprise management, supply chain management and business analytics.

Students will also work on their writing and learn more about options available to fund their education.

The week will conclude with the Marketplace competition, a team-based business-simulation game that allows the students to run a company as business professionals.

More than 150 high school students from four states have participated in the program. Of the 118 students who have already completed the program, about 59 students are now or will be attending UT.

The program is a great recruiting tool, said Tyvi Small, the business college’s coordinator of diversity initiatives. It also gives high school students the opportunity to see what programs the College of Business Administration has to offer and get a sneak peek at college life.

This year’s participants are rising seniors with at least a 3.76 grade point average who were nominated by counselors or community members. The 32 students represent 24 high schools and 14 cities.

Funding for the 2013 BETS program is provided by the PepsiCo Foundation as part of its $350,000 five-year grant to the college’s diversity efforts.

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Editor’s note:

Story and photo opportunities during BETS are as follows:

Friday, June 14

2 to 4 p.m.—Tour of Radio Systems/PetSafe, 10427 Electric Ave.

Tuesday, June 18

Noon to 1:20 p.m.—Meeting at Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero’s office and meeting with Russ Jensen, director of the 311 call center, City County Building

Thursday, June 20

12:30 to 1:50 p.m.—Alcoa Energy and Metals Trading Floor, 900 Gay St.

Saturday, June 22

10:30 a.m. to noon—Marketplace competition presentations, 203 Haslam Business Building

UT Student Entrepreneurs Awarded Spring 2013 Boyd Venture Grants

KNOXVILLE—Three entrepreneurial ventures owned by students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have been granted a total of $25,000 by the Boyd Venture Fund.

From Left: Randy Boyd, CEO Radio Systems Corporation; Jordan Humble, Escadrille Cycling Apparel; Jake Rheude, SummerSett Foods LLC; Collin Howser and Trevor Grieco, PTlink LLC

The funds will be used to grow the student-run businesses.

A fourth student venture has been offered space in the UT Research Foundation Business Incubator. The in-kind offer is worth $3,000.

“Creating new local businesses is the cornerstone of a community’s success,” said Randy Boyd, fund benefactor and CEO of Radio Systems Corp. “I cannot imagine a better return on investment than supporting future generations of entrepreneurs.”

The spring 2013 Boyd Venture winners are:

• Summersett Foods LLC, a manufacturer and distributor of a line of frozen buffalo chicken dips that can go directly from the freezer to the microwave. Founded by marketing senior Jake Rheude, Summersett Foods was created when Rheude moved to Knoxville from Cincinnati and could not find dips he was familiar with. He then created and began marketing the product with a former business partner.

The Boyd Venture Fund grant will allow Summersett Foods to develop in-store merchandising materials and pursue contracts with local grocery store chains.

• Escadrille Cycling Apparel, a clothing company that specializes in high-end custom apparel for cycling enthusiasts. Formally called Privateer Cycling Apparel, Escadrille Cycling Apparel was founded by Jordan Humble, a senior in global politics and economics.

Humble, who has been on the U.S. cycling team and has raced in Europe, noticed that cycling apparel has not changed in decades and set out to change this by connecting with world-class sporting apparel designers. Prototypes are now being sewn in Los Angeles, but Humble, who is from Chattanooga, plans to move production to East Tennessee in the future.

Humble’s Boyd Venture Fund grant will allow him to move forward with prototype development and marketing.

• PTlink LLC, a software company that allows a physical therapist and a patient to connect more frequently, therefore ensuring a faster and more effective recovery.

PTlink, founded by Collin Howser of Nashville and Trevor Grieco of Knoxville, both seniors in biomedical engineering, is an interactive mobile app that connects a patient to a clinician to improve communication and recovery in a rehabilitation setting.

The app has two components: A clinician can create a rehab program, while a patient can go through the therapy electronically. The patient and the clinician are linked throughout the rehabilitation process.

The Boyd Venture Fund award will allow the founders to do extensive market research to validate or modify the product features.

In addition to the Boyd Venture Fund grants, Anna Gilbert of Memphis, a senior in retail and consumer science, has been given space in the UT Research Foundation Business Incubator to grow her business. She founded Anna’s Armoire, a fixed-price jewelry and apparel merchandiser run through Facebook. Gilbert locates unique jewelry and apparel, photographs it, and posts it on the company’s Facebook page. Every Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time the site goes live, and customers can buy the limited-quantity merchandise by commenting “sold” on the picture.

Boyd Venture Fund grants are administered through the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in UT’s College of Business Administration and are available to any UT student-owned business. They are awarded each spring and fall. Since the fund’s inception in 2011, 11 student-owned companies have been awarded a total of $87,500 in seed capital to achieve milestones that advanced their businesses.

The UT Research Foundation Business Incubator, 2450 E.J. Chapman Drive, provides entrepreneurs with an environment that encourages learning, growth and self-sustainability where participants learn from experts and other students as they start and build technology-based businesses.

For more information about the business incubator, visit http://www.utk.edu/go/qv. 

Random Acts of Flowers (founded by UT alum) eyes Florida expansion

In 2011, UT alum Larsen Jay founded Random Acts of Flowers, a nonprofit organization that collects donated flowers from weddings, memorial services, florists, special events, grocery stores, and churches and repurposes them into bouquets for delivery to patients in area hospitals, nursing homes and hospice care centers. Started in Knoxville, the charity is expanding nationally with two chapters opening in Florida and four additional cities in development. Read more.

World-Renowned Expert in Theory of Constraints to Speak at UT June 24

KNOXVILLE—An internationally recognized expert on how businesses can resolve complex management dilemmas and increase profitability by removing organizational constraints will speak at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, on Monday, June 24.

Rami Goldratt, chief executive officer of Goldratt Consulting, will lead an interactive seminar, Creating the Ever-Flourishing Company Using the Theory of Constraints (TOC), at the Center for Executive Education in the UT College of Business Administration.

Upper-level managers across all industries are invited to the seminar, which will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is open to the public. The cost is $825, which includes course materials, breakfast, snacks and lunch. To register, visit http://execed.utk.edu/goldrattseminar. 

Seminar topics will include how participants can achieve organizational stability, growth and harmony; uncover simple solutions for complex problems; think holistically to achieve goals; deliver projects on time and with shorter project cycle time, position their organization for exponential growth; and turn improvements into a decisive competitive edge.

Participants will leave with Theory of Constraint tools, including the Five Focusing Steps of TOC, the Change Matrix, and the Strategy and Tactics Tree.

Theory of Constraints is a management tool based on the assumption that any system, no matter how complex it seems, is governed by only a few elements. Identifying the system’s constraints and managing them accordingly produces rapid improvement and fosters harmony throughout the system.

Goldratt follows in the footsteps of his father, the late Eli Goldratt, the founder of the Theory of Constraints and the author of “The Goal.” The best-selling book introduced TOC to a wide audience, and it remains one of the most popular business texts of all time.

Prior to serving as CEO of Goldratt Consulting, Goldratt was CEO of SFSCo (Solutions for Sales Co.). SFSCo supplies sales and marketing experts for Viable Vision projects, a holistic solution based on the Theory of Constraints that has been implemented at companies worldwide. Goldratt holds a master’s degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

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CONTACTS:

Peggy Jarrett (865-974-1616 or 865-974-5001; peggy.jarrett@utk.edu)

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

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UT alum (1969) and former Knoxville deputy mayor named state’s interim finance commissioner

Larry Martin, a former banker who served as deputy to Knoxville’s mayor for six years, has been named interim commissioner of the state Department of Finance and Administration. Read more.

UT Alum Cares for Boston Marathon Victims

Gregory Antoine, MD (Class of 2010 from the Physician Executive MBA program) helped care for the Boston Marathon Victims. Read more.

UT Among Top-10 Most Popular Business Schools by US News & World Report

The UT College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is among the nation’s most popular business schools, according to a recently released ranking from U.S. News and World Report.

Of the ten schools included in the US News 10 Most Popular B-Schools “short list” specialty graduate ranking, UT ranked eighth nationally and fifth among public universities. This particular ranking focuses on the percentage of students admitted to specific schools who choose to attend that school.

The U.S. News Short List, separate from its overall rankings, magnifies individual data points to identify which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas.

“Our faculty and staff expend significant effort in the admissions process, carefully identifying students likely to benefit most from the UT MBA educational experience and appeal to our corporate partners,” said Stephen Mangum, dean of UT’s College of Business Administration. “Our prospective students, as reflected in their matriculation decision, appear to appreciate that effort and agree with its effectiveness.”

For the program beginning fall 2012, UT’s MBA program admitted 106 students; 76 (or 71.7 percent) matriculated. The University of Wisconsin-Madison had the highest yield in the country, with a 90.4 percent matriculation rate. The complete ranking is available at http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/the-short-list-grad-school/articles/2013/05/21/10-most-popular-b-schools.

In the 2014 US News overall graduate-school rankings, UT’s full-time MBA program ranks 67^th nationally and #37 among public institutions.

For more information about the College of Business Administration, visit http://bus.utk.edu . For more information about the UT MBA program, visit http://mba.utk.edu .