OSU Alumni Receive Governor’s Cup

  The first Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition Awards Luncheon took place on May 4, 2005 on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond.  The ceremony featured a keynote address by Guy Kawasaki and an awards presentation featuring First Lady Kim Henry.  Matt Brisco and Zach Moore were among the competitions winners.

    Matt Briscoe graduated with his BS ChE in Dec 1997.  He is currently working in the midstream natural gas industry as a Project Manager at OGE / Enogex, Inc in Oklahoma City.  He has been at Enogex for five years and was promoted to a Project Management position two years ago.  Before that he was working in their system optimization group at Enogex, and performing project and operations work with Merrick and Company at different refineries in Colorado and Wyoming, the Coors Brewery, and NREL. 

 Zack Moore graduated with his BS ChE in Dec 2000.  He has been doing business consulting for oil & gas facilities at a small firm in Denver, and is currently transitioning from the corporate world into working with & creating new start-up ventures.

 While at OSU they took a class on entrepreneurship which introduced them to the Governor's Cup sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation - a contest for start-up business ideas.  Their idea "Fit-2-Eat", is a quick serve restaurant that addresses today's inadequacy of healthy fast food.

     The 2005 Donald W. Reynolds Governor's Cup had twenty-six entries from undergraduate students.  Fit-2-Eat took second place winning a $10,000 prize for Zack and Matt to invest in their idea.  Third place went to a group from Oral Roberts University, and first place ($20,000) to a group from Cameron University.  Four of the six undergraduate category finalist teams came from Oklahoma State University!

     Student teams from eleven Oklahoma colleges and universities were named as the twelve undergraduate semi-finalists and six graduate finalists competing separately contending for the first, second and third place cash awards in each division.  First place of each division received $20,000, with $10,000 going to the second place winning teams, and $5,000 to the third.

  Zack and Matt plan to get Fit-2-Eat off the ground, hopefully with the help of the positive recognition they received at the Governor’s Cup.  They plan to work with venture capitalists and personnel at the Incubator in Oklahoma City to get financial backing for their idea. 

     About 2000 people attended the awards ceremony at the University of Central Oklahoma, representing the universities and many business innovators throughout the state.

    The competition was funded by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.  I2E, Inc. managed the Oklahoma competition in cooperation with the Oklahoma EPSCoR, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education, and the Presbyterian Health Foundation, the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST), and the State Chamber.

    “Donald W. Reynolds’ entrepreneurial spirit began as a young man hawking newspapers in OKC.   He purchased each for a penny and then doubled his investment with each sale.  Our hope is that the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup will encourage other young men and women to give consideration to starting their own business just as Mr. Reynolds did in 1940” said Fred W. Smith, chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

    The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in late 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named.  Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is on of the largest private foundations in the United States.

    -by Sam McCoy 20 May 2005