Three Teams Win Capstone Business Plan Competition

The Capstone Business Plan Competition is a semi-annual event held at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, which allows seniors to put into practice everything they have learned during their years of study at Whitman. In teams, the students write business place and present their entrepreneurial ventures to panels of entrepreneurs, Whitman faculty, and local business leaders. This semester, 48 business plan teams, accounting for 240 Whitman students, participated for the top three cash prizes, and the winners are:

First Place: BSApp, a service that coordinates, facilitates, and enhances the graduate management admissions process by offering a one-stop online location for submitting applications. The team is made up of Greg Ackerman, Rachel Baumann, Michelle Caruso, Jaclyn Casavant, and Zackary Singer.

Second Place: Guardian Inc., which seeks to provide consumers with a unique way of protecting themselves and their families from food-borne illnesses by incorporating a new enzyme sensor (Toxin Guard™) technology into their products. The sensor's main purpose is to act as an early warning system by changing colors if it detects a food-borne bacteria and viruses. The team includes Jason Ireton, Michael McGrath, Nicole Negrin, Christopher Ruckert, and Keisha Townsend.

Third Place: Color Precision, which will create an efficient, standardized, and systematic color communication process between fashion design companies and textile mills through the use of software, databases, spectrometers, and dye recipes. The team includes Mark Castellano, Yen-Fun Eng, Sophie Gates, Valerie Powers, and Michelle Williamson.