May 11, 2006: Volume 67, Number 7

Union students finish second in regional business plan competition

Sophomores Steve Walker and Josh DeBartolo took second-place honors at the prestigious Tech Valley Collegiate Business Plan competition.

The students won $4,000 for their business, Campus Outlaw Inc., an online exchange for college students to buy and sell used textbooks. The Web site enables Union students to post information about their used books, which they can then buy and sell to one another.

The site has been in operation for only a short time and has already posted $14,000 worth of textbooks. The pair will use the cash prize to expand their business.

Walker is a political science/economics major; DeBartolo is an economics/psychology major.

Earlier this year, the pair won the College's first-ever business plan competition.

The top prize of $5,000 for the Tech Valley competition went to Vayu Innovations, a technology start-up company founded by four MBA graduate students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The competition – held at RPI on May 3 – was sponsored by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer's Lally School of Management and Technology.

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