Bike art, drill rig take 2009 $10,000 Business Plan Competition prizes

A student who makes bracelets from broken bicycle parts and another who has an idea for a drill rig that can be used to place supports for buildings with failed foundations won this year’s West Virginia University Statewide Student Business Plan Competition.

The competition was held recently at WVU with 10 teams out of an original field of 90 entries last fall from colleges and universities across the state. The winners, both from WVU, got $10,000 cash prizes and a bundle of services to help them start their business in West Virginia.

Robert Loehr, a mechanical engineering student from Ritchie County, began making jewelry from broken bicycle parts after years of being a cycling enthusiast with lots of old parts. He hopes to have his SpokeArt in bicycle shops across the country within five years. “I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur or business owner, which I am now,” he said. “It’s been such an amazing learning experience that even without winning the prize it would have been great.”

James Kearns, a multidisciplinary studies student from Virginia, worked in construction jobs during breaks from school and noticed the need for some way to reinforce buildings with faulty foundations. “I thought there had to be a better way to fix the problems that were going on,” he said. Speaking after he received the award about starting a business in West Virginia, he said, “There’s great opportunity and I’m looking forward to starting a business here.”

Entrepreneurship Center Director Mindy Walls commented, “Each year the event becomes more competitive. Each team prepared a top-quality plan and had a very strong presentation. The judges had a difficult time selecting the winners.”

The annual competition began in the WVU College of Business and Economics in 2003. Its purpose is to encourage students to think like entrepreneurs and to create new businesses for the state. To enter, each team submitted a three- to five-page summary of a business idea in either the innovation or lifestyle category. The summaries were scored by panels of judges from across the region.


This year’s competition was supported by:
Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
Branch Banking & Trust
Chesapeake Energy Corp.
The Dobbs Financial Group/Northwestern
Dixon Hughes, PLLC
Spilman, Thomas & Battle, PLLC
Core Concepts, LLC
West Virginia University Business Incubator
West Virginia University Research Corp.
Morgantown Printing & Binding