UMaine Business Student, Alum Moving Invention toward Production
Contact: William Sulinski, 866-6562; Matthew Rodrigue, 774-487-8396; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO, Maine — A University of Maine business student and a recent engineering graduate have won a second major business plan competition, which provides a $25,000 prize to help launch a new company they co-founded.
William Sulinski, a senior from Dedham, Maine majoring in economics, and Matthew Rodrigue, a 2004 engineering graduate from Wilton, Maine, also received word on Monday that they have been approved for a $5,000 seed grant from the Portland-based Libra Future Fund.
The pair conceptually devised a new device to improve the efficiency of home heating oil delivery and have used at least two business plan competitions to hone their presentation and marketing skills.
In late March, they captured first place at the business plan competition held by the Center for Entrepreneurship at the School of Business at the University of Southern Maine. The prize was $10,000 cash and $15,000 in legal consulting and other services to help them develop and market their new product.
They recently opened an office in the university’s Target Technology Center on Bennoch Road in Orono to formally move their device toward production and begin talking with potential angels and investors. They have applied for a patent on the device and are discussing a prototype design plan with Enercon Technologies engineering firm in Gray, Maine, says Sulinski, whose family owns a local heating oil distribution business.
In December, the concept won first prize and a $5,000 cash award at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Business Plan Competition (CIBC) in Fredericton, N.B., Canada.
In the South Portland business plan competition, more than 20 teams competed and five were chosen to present before three judges – a technical consultant, an angel investor and the manager of a major accounting firm. The competition was open to students from USM, Southern Maine Community College, University of Maine at Farmington and UMaine.
The Libra Future Fund is a new program of the Libra Foundation created to “combat youth out-migration by supporting initiatives that increase the number of Maine-based professional opportunities,” according to the Libra Fund website. Sulinski and Rodrigue also hope to leverage the grant and prize money against a $10,000 seed grant from the Maine Technology Institute, which requires a 100-percent match.
As they move forward with the new company, Consumer Energy Research Corporation, Sulinski says, “my ‘to-do list’ is just astronomical, but I think that’s what makes a successful entrepreneur.”
He intends to devote the summer to marketing and production planning. Rodrigue, currently an engineering consultant for Woodard & Curran engineers’ Dedham, Mass. office and a member of the UMaine Board of Visitors, will begin an MBA program at Harvard Business School this fall, but will continue with Sulinski as an advisor.
“We’re very excited about it,” says Rodrigue.
The partners’ “Heat-Safe 1000” is a wireless device that lets heating oil companies know when customers’ oil tanks get low. With a built in radio-signal warning device installed in a tank, consumers and businesses will run out of oil less often, if at all. That will reduce emergency deliveries and inconvenience for people who normally would wait without heat while oil companies make the emergency deliveries.
Sulinski is optimistic about getting his product into mass production.
“CIBC, USM and the Libra grant are big steps,” he says. “The resources and visibility from these competitions, and the assistance of Debbie (Neuman, Target Technology Incubator director) have been incredibly helpful in the start-up procedure.”
The idea for the Heat Safe 1000 was Sulinski’s original concept, which he further developed with Rodrigue, along with advice from the university’s Target Technology Incubator and the UMaine Office of Research and Economic Development.