UNR teams tops in business plan contest

A team of University of Nevada, Reno, students won $20,000 in a first-ever collegiate business plan competition last week.

The students developed a business plan for Sierra Nevada Seafood, a business that would farm prawns in northern Nevada.

The team members, Stephanie Luongo and Benjamin Haas,will split the cash prize.

Their advisor, Mehdi Etezadi,will receive a $1,000 prize.

The second-place team also came from UNR.

The members of that team, Jolene Hayes, Devrin Lee and J.D.Morscheck, prepared a business plan for DermaMAT, a company that would deliver flu vaccine through a patch.

The DermaMAT team will split $10,000.

Its advisor, Gary Valiere, received $1,000.

The third-place team from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, received a $5,000 prize for a business plan that involved mass manufacturing of school uniforms in Tanzania.

The business plan competition was managed by Nevada's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology,whose leaders said they want to continue building a culture of entrepreneurship among the state's students.

The Donald W.

Reynolds Foundation of Las Vegas provided funding for the competition.

The 20 teams that entered the contest included nine from UNR and nine from Sierra Nevada College at Incline Village.

Teams also entered from UNLV, Great Basin College at Elko and Southern Nevada Community College.