Poole College Announces 2013 Leadership and Innovation Showcase Honorees

A new device for monitoring patients with COPD and a supply chain solution for an international company won first place in the undergraduate and graduate divisions, respectively, at the NC State Poole College of Management’s Fifth Annual Leadership and Innovation Showcase held Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at Nelson Hall on the NC State University campus in Raleigh, N.C.

Nearly 40 projects were entered by Poole College students, with scholarships awarded to first, second and third place teams in the undergraduate and graduate categories. For the first time since the Showcase was established in 2008, the college had a second-place tie in the undergraduate categories. See all the winners below.

IBM Named Recruiter of the Year

Another Showcase first this year was a presentation of the college’s inaugural Recruiter of the Year award. Dr. Ira R. Weiss, dean of the Poole College, presented the award to IBM in recognition of its work with Poole College’s career services staff in placing students in internships and full-time positions. Poole College currently has more alumni at IBM than at any other company, according to self-reported statistics, Weiss said in presenting the award to Patrick Skelly, IBM’s University Recruiting Program Manager.

Skelly and other corporate recruiters were among the 200 industry leaders, alumni, students and faculty who viewed summaries of the students’ practicum and other project-based courses during the Showcase Poster Gallery exhibit session. Ten teams of judges including Poole College advisory board members, other business leaders and faculty heard student presentations and judged their poster summaries before selecting the winners.

Poole College’s Person of the Year Announces Showcase Winners

Henry Campen, a partner in the Raleigh office of Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP, and Poole College’s 2013 Person of the Year award recipient, announced the winning teams during the Showcase awards ceremony. Following are the 2013 Showcase winners.

First Place, Undergraduate Division

In this project by Annette Gustafson and Katharina Peter gathered information and offered a recommendation regarding customs compliances and leading practices among various industries related to clearing freight through customs for Novozymes, a global biotechnology company. After researching current custom compliance processes among various industries, this team explored in depth the option of foreign trade zones and recommended that the company investigate this option further. Novozymes is a partner company in the college’s Supply Chain Resource Cooperative. This project was completed as part of the student's undergraduate supply chain practicum course.

First Place, Graduate Division

Caroline Chamblee Lewis and Mike Westrich (Jenkins MBA 2013) won first place in the Showcase graduate division with their Product Innovation Lab project – a prototype of a device that would provide continual monitoring of patients age 65 and older who have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The comfortable, user-friendly device would bring value to a third party by providing automatic health status alerts remotely. The team has submitted its business plan to a company whose portfolio includes urgent response systems and health and medical applications.

Second Place, Undergraduate Division

The following two teams tied for second place in this division.

Eloy Chavez, Erik Fressler and Scott Hefner, a team of undergraduate entrepreneurship students working under the name Karion Medical, developed a business plan for COM-RAD, a wrist brace with an inflatable bladder and heart rate sensor. The technology, developed by a team of students in NC State’s biomedical engineering program, keeps the wrist immobile during heart catheterization procedures and promotes quicker post-procedure healing. The entrepreneurship team is proposing a business concept to bring this concept to market, working with Dr. Lee Job, head of cardiology at WakeMed Hospital.

Tied with Karion Medical for second place was a team of supply chain students – Andrew Paulson, Amanda Young and Will Zheng – who entered their project for Caterpillar’s Building Construction Parts (BCP). The team completed a cost analysis and implementation process for purchasing parts through the Cat Logistics network instead of its current process. This project was completed as part of the students' undergraduate supply chain practicum course.

Second Place, Graduate Division

Kate Hamilton, Samuel Kliewer and Marko Zivkovic’s supply chain project for Bayer CropScience focused on providing an internal communications campaign to show the value – beyond cost savings – of working with the company’s procurement process earlier in the sourcing process. This project was completed as part of the Jenkins MBA students' supply chain practicum course.

Third Place, Undergraduate Division

A team of four undergraduate supply chain students – Renata Barbosa, Sheila Mondragon, Hunter Smith and Katherine Trapp – received third place for their Duke Energy supply chain project. The team worked across the company’s supply chain and sustainability organization to identify appropriate sustainability questions and the criteria for assessing a supplier’s sustainability commitment and capabilities. This project was completed as part of the students' undergraduate supply chain practicum course.

Third Place, Graduate Division

Indranil Chatterjee, Sivaprasaad Kumar and Crista Wagner’s supply chain project for a top PC manufacturer provided a new scorecard, reporting requirements and a supplier quality development program for the companies sub-tier manufacturers to assure compliance with the company’s standards. This project was completed as part of the Jenkins MBA students' supply chain practicum course.

The winning team members received scholarship awards, dividing the total award among the team members. Undergraduates teams received $750 for first place; $500 for second place, and $250 for third. Graduate teams received $1,250 for first place; $1,000 for second place; and $750 for third place.

About the Leadership and Innovation Showcase

The Showcase was established five years ago by Weiss as a way to highlight the quality and variety of innovative problem solving that students do in their practicum and other project-based courses.

“Leadership and innovation are two key drivers of business and industry,” Weiss said at this year’s awards program. “The Poole College of Management is committed to providing our students with the knowledge and skills they need to be effective leaders and innovators in today’s dynamic, global, technology driven marketplace,” he said.

“That includes providing real world experiences that will test and stretch their knowledge and build the skills and confidence that they will need for the challenges ahead. One way that we do that is through a wide range of project-based or practicum courses, in which our students work hand-in-hand with company mentors to develop solutions for real world problems,” Weiss said.

“On behalf of the college, I thank all the companies that present these challenging learning experiences to our students. You provide an invaluable contribution to the development of our next generation of innovators and leaders,” he said.