In the 6th Annual Utah Entrepreneur Challenge, hosted by the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, three teams from the Marriott School of Business took top honors - Core Footwear, Five Star Painting and Precision Surveying Solutions.

Out of the 204 teams that entered their business plans, a panel of judges selected 10 teams from BYU, the University of Utah and Dixie College. Each of the finalist teams presented their projects to the judges on April 22, 2006.

Core Footwear

Core Footwear received top honors and the grand prize of $40,000 in seed money.

"Well, the idea kinda started last year," said Bret Rasmussen. "I guess footwear has been a passion of mine since childhood."

When Bret lost his job last year the idea for Core Footwear started materializing and since then the group has been getting lots of positive feedback from the product - an anatomical shoe.

"The product is designed for mountain lifestyle comfort shoe," Bret said. "It has a mid-sole technology that molds to your foot over time."

"After you wear it for two weeks it's a shoe that is made for your foot," said T. Hughes, another member of the Core Footwear team.

The patent-pending anatomical foot bed molds to your foot. The top of the shoe is made out of soft shell material and there is a leather toecap to protect the toes, Hughes explained.

With the seed money they won from the competition, Core Footwear finalized prototypes and will be going to China to get samples made.

Five Star Painting

Five Star Painting created a call center, which schedules estimates for customers and then re-sales the information to painters who are interested. They also created software for painters to use when giving estimates on jobs. It gives

"We franchised the painting and decorating industry," said Scott Abbott, the creator of Five Star Painting.

There are now locations in Utah and Nevada in addition to the headquarters in Canada. The $5,000 awarded from the competition will help the company link locations in California and Texas via the Internet in a Blackberry style.

"We are also working with a graphics group to develop our franchise sales collateral and opening three corporate franchises," Abbott said.

Precision Surveying Solutions

Precision Surveying Solutions is comprised of Tim Wessman, Adam Robertson and John Evers, who is a professional land surveyor from Ohio.

"We built a hand-held wireless instrument for land surveyors and civil engineers," Robertson said.

Precision Surveying Solutions creates things such as property deeds and construction plans. They collect data and then they interface it with modern measurement equipment, such as GPS, or Global Positioning System, and it collects measurements and calculations.

"We're doing a number of things," Robertson said. " We got $5000 in cash and we got $10,000 in services. We're pursuing the services heavily."

Over $100,000 in cash prizes and services were awarded during the awards ceremony on April 27 at Rice-Eccles Stadium Tower.

Copyright Brigham Young University 5 May 2006