Walsh Jesuit held a business plan competition on Wednesday, February 15 to provide students with an opportunity to present their business ideas to a panel of judges to win cash prizes. This competition was sponsored by The Veale Foundation, an organization dedicated to developing young entrepreneurs, but was open to any interested student at Walsh Jesuit.

This contest has evolved over the past three years due to the entrepreneurship class at WJ. Ms. Dowling teaches entrepreneurship every morning, then teaches at Kent State the rest of the day and has played a pivotal role in evolving this competition within WJ.

When asked what the main purpose of the competition was she answered, “The purpose of the Veale Venture Challenge is to encourage students from NE Ohio to recognize business opportunities and develop their ideas. Students learn to write a convincing business plan, and deliver a compelling pitch to a panel of judges. The competition helps to prepare students for college by developing business writing skills, financial and analytic competencies, and presentation skills.” The contestants made a power point and delivered their own business ideas to the a panel of three judges. The three judges were Paul Gabrail, Ann Holt-Wioland, and Craig Zamary who nicely gave up some of their time to help develop young entrepreneurs.

The first place winner was sophomore Kathryn Coughlin with her revolutionary swimsuit for competitive swimmers to replace fast skins called, ‘Coskin’. Placing second was senior Becky Semancik with a bakery company called ‘Flour Power’ who walked away from the contest with $300. Becky said, “I thought it was a great experience and it was great preparation for future jobs and job interviews”. There was a tie for third place between junior Jessica Brown with a nighttime skin serum and sophomore Michael Dick with his idea for auto-tinting auto glass, both contestants walked away from the contest with $75.

In conversation with senior Hunter Contos, one of the other contestants, was asked why he chose to enter the contest; his response was, “I decided to enter the business plan competition because I wanted to pitch an idea of mine and receive feedback on it as well as learn more about entrepreneurship and how to bring an idea to fruition.”

The contest was a great success at WJ and sophomore Kathryn Coughlin will have opportunity to participate in the finals on April 24 at Case Western Reserve University.