Rensselaer Foursome Wins Severino Center’s Tech Valley Collegiate Business Plan Competition

Four Rensselaer MBA students who formed Orca Gear Inc., a company that integrates technology into recreational apparel, won the Tech Valley Collegiate Business Plan Competition Wednesday, April 9. The contest, which was open to all area college students, was sponsored by the Severino Center in Rensselaer’s Lally School.

	Philip Korniss

Orca Gear was awarded $5,000 in cash and the opportunity to receive an additional $20,000 in seed funding and $8,500 in legal counsel and patent application services. Additionally, the Severino Center will sponsor the group at Fortune magazine’s small business plan competition later this year.

Moblinx Systems, another student team from Rensselaer, earned second place, and Writing Methods, from Hudson Valley Community College, was third. Moblinx Systems and Writing Methods were presented with $4,000 and $3,000, respectively.

Orca Gear invented and wrote a business plan for marketing the Float-Tech Personal Flotation Device (Float-Tech PFD), a lightweight liner for a jacket that inflates automatically when it is immersed in water or when a ripcord is pulled. The product originated in Rensselaer’s Design, Manufacturing, and Marketing course, a class for Lally School MBA students. Currently, a patent for Float-Tech PFD and certification from the U.S. Coast Guard are both pending.

Orca Gear team members include Jeffrey Betz, the company’s chief executive officer; Cecilia Domingos, chief financial officer; Michael Farmer, vice president of business development; and Michael Lobsinger, chief technology officer.

Lally Dean Denis Simon (far left) with the winning team. Photo by Thomas Griffin

Through software development and hardware integration, Moblinx Systems combines entertainment, navigation, and communication into one device for the car. Writing Methods provides instruction to learning-disabled high school students on how to write a graduate school-level paper and how to score well on the writing portion of the Graduate Record Exam.

“Each of the final teams had very interesting and well-thought-out business plans,” said Jeanne Stefanik, manager of the Severino Center and organizer of the contest. “We’re happy for every one of the groups and wish them the best in the future.”