WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., July 6, 2016 — West Liberty University took its Entrepreneur Pitch Contest on the road recently and rewarded a new business, Sugar Shack, the cash prize of $2,500.
“Our Entrepreneur Pitch Contest moved to Brooke County and for the first time. Even though it rained the entire time and we had to move inside the tent, it was a wonderful time, and a big turn out. We look forward to returning to Brooke County in the future,” said Dr. Carrie White, director of WLU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and professor of business law and entrepreneurship at the Gary E. West College of Business.
Held at 6 p.m., Thursday, June 23, at Wellsburg Town Park, 17th and Charles Streets, the event offered participants five minutes to present their new business idea, followed by questions and answers from the panel of judges and the audience, prior to the vote on the best pitch.
David Klick and Norm Schwertfeger, members of the Brooke County Economic Development Authority (EDA), coordinated the pitch contest.
Pitch winner, the Sugar Shack, owned by Britney Hervey Farris of Family Roots Farm, is part of a small family farm operated in Brooke County. It recently earned first place for its stirred sugar and a perfect score on its maple syrup at the International Maple Syrup Conference in 2015. Now it is looking at expanding its market.
“To meet supply and demand, we doubled our maple operation and constructed a new sugar shack. Now, Family Roots Farm would like to take our products to the retail level and expand. A commercial kitchen is needed however,” explained Farris in her pitch. “With the addition of retail sales, we would increase our business by 60 percent. We anticipate the expansion into retail would result in our hiring two additional full time employees in 2016 and two more in 2017.”
Farris said the winnings would cover about 25 percent of the kitchen’s cost and the family is prepared to come up with the remainder of the expense. Currently the farm products are sold at a weekly farmer’s market and direct to customers (visit familyrootsfarmwv.com for more information).
Earning second place in the pitch contest was Cindy Dobbs, owner of Cindy’s Fusion Fitness of Wellsburg, who received $1,000 from the Brooke County EDA to purchase special stationary bikes needed to add spinning to her fitness studio. Placing third and receiving a $250 cash prize from WesBanco was Lindsay Alderson for Charles Books and Bistro, a bookstore that also would offer coffees and other drinks, fresh pastries, soups, salads and other food along with gifts, antiques and locally made goods.
Other contestants included: Ruby Greathouse, a leader of the Brooke County Pioneer Trail Association, who suggested an independently run for-profit trailhead that would include a snack shop, grocery store and fuel station for bicyclists on the trail and boaters on the adjacent Ohio River; Lisa Haught and her home-based business, Lisa’s Custom Cutouts, which creates custom-made T-shirts, mugs, cell phone covers and other merchandise; Michael Traubert, who suggested The Victory Garden, a seed library where gardeners could obtain a wide variety of seeds at no cost on the condition they replace them with others; and Lesa Scammell, a home arts instructor interested in establishing the Sip ‘n Sew Quilt Shop, to offer instruction and materials for quilting and sewing.
The event was open to the public and drew a wide range of community members.
“Our judging panel consisted of Brooke County Commissioner Stacey Wise, Wellsburg City Manager Steve Maguschak, Pat Ford, director of the Business Development Corporation of the Northern Panhandle; Scott Trimmer, operations engineer at Eagle Manufacturing; and Cory Dennison, president of Vision Shared, a nonprofit that promotes economic development. We are very grateful for these business leaders for participating and sharing their skills with us,” White said.
The Brooke County Pitch Contest was the eighth pitch competition presented by the WLU Center for Entrepreneurship. Beside WLU and the Brooke County EDA, sponsors include the Wellsburg Chamber of Commerce, the City of Wellsburg, Eagle Manufacturing, Franklin Volunteer Fire Department, Ohio Valley Septic and WesBanco. WLU’s Pitch Contest also receives support from the Community Foundation of the Ohio Valley, the Regional Economic Development Partners and Vision Shared.
The next WLU pitch contest will be held in fall 2016. The Center for Entrepreneurship is a division of the Gary E. West College of Business and acts as a catalyst job creation in the region. The pitch contest is just one of the new business programs that it fuels. Others include a business incubator (housed in WLU’s Main Hall) and an entrepreneurship minor for WLU students.
Entrepreneurs seeking more information should contact White at 304-336-8159 or at cwhite@westliberty.edu. For complete information on the Gary E. West College of Business, visit westliberty.edu/westbusiness.