UNI Student Wins State Business Plan Competition 2012

A University of Northern Iowa (UNI) student won one of three $5,000 first place awards in the Pappajohn New Venture Business Plan Competition held in Des Moines on April 25.

Brian Hoyer, a junior general studies major from Cedar Falls, and Tim Schulte, a senior double major in business teaching and accounting from Des Moines, won for Hoyer’s business, Recycle Rite Inc.

Recycle Rite provides single-stream curbside recycling services for residential and commercial customers in Cedar Falls and other parts of the Cedar Valley. The company is currently expanding into other service lines.

“I am pleased to have won. We were excited about the opportunity to meet with John Pappajohn and the other judges from Equity Dynamics and receive input on the business. The award money will help with the purchase of some equipment for the business, furthering its expansion,” said Hoyer.

Kyle Reasoner, a senior double majoring in political science and political communications from Washburn, and Heather Hussong, a senior general studies major from Spirit Lake, were UNI regional winners for their business, Eco Taxi, a bio-fueled taxi service opening in Iowa City. Christian Brown, a second BA majoring in accounting from Waterloo, was a UNI regional winner for his business, CMB Portfolio Management LLC, an investment consulting firm.

The other two state-level winners were Structuralize, a facial motion capture service for the video game and film industries , from Iowa State University, and Mazira LLC, a cloud-based web service for storing and searching massive amounts of data and documents, from the University of Iowa.