Inaugural “Paulsen Scholarship” Awards Presented at Don Reynold’s Competition
Timothy Harlin
Timothy Harlin from Oklahoma City University and, Nicholas Harrison from the University of Oklahoma are the recipients of the first annual “Paulsen Scholarships” presented at the 2009 Don Reynold’s Governor’s Cup business plan awards ceremony on April 14.
The $5,000 scholarships are named for Don Paulsen, longtime President of the Oklahoma Business Roundtable. Paulsen received special recognition in front of an audience of over 500 at the annual gala in Oklahoma City.
Nicholas Harrison
Nicholas Harrison
“We are pleased to award these two outstanding young entrepreneurs with this scholarship, named after one of their greatest boosters, Don Paulsen,” said Tom Maxwell, incoming chairman of the Oklahoma Business Roundtable.
Both students have been invited to make presentations to top corporate leaders at the Roundtable’s June membership meeting in Tulsa.
Our judges have been so impressed with the individuals as well as the business plans and the products they were presenting that this year the Roundtable expanded from one to two scholarships,” says Don Paulsen, president of the Oklahoma Business Roundtable. “The increased interest in the scholarships and the students that are coming forward with very interesting projects and business plans are very exciting to our roundtable members.”
Tom Maxwell and Donald Paulsen
Tom Maxwell and Donald Paulsen
Both of these recipients placed as winners in the Gov Cup competition.
Harlin was a part of Hexakit from OCU who won the $20,000 first-place cash award in the graduate division for a business plan that proposed to commercialize a generic version of a heart imaging drug used to investigate damage caused by heart attack.
Harrison was team leader for Bio-Oil Extraction Technologies who won $5000 as the third place winner in the graduate division for a business plan that will bring advanced biomass oil extraction technologies to market.
The Roundtable Supports Programs to Enhance Oklahoma’s Economic Development
The Oklahoma Business Roundtable actively supports key programs to promote Oklahoma’s economic development.
Roundtable funding is utilized by the Governor, Lt. Governor and Commerce Department for key business development promotion activities. It is also used as a catalyst for creation and support of “best-practice” programs and events.
Included are business recruitment and expansion efforts and co-sponsorship of special events to promote workforce development, entrepreneurship, new company start-up and corporate quality.
Roundtable members are encouraged to play a direct role in these important statewide efforts.
Major 2008-2009 programs supported by the Roundtable include:
The Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup is a unique statewide collegiate business plan competition. The program encourages students of Oklahoma universities and colleges to act upon their ideas and talents in order to produce tomorrow’s businesses. 2009 Roundtable funding is targeted to undergraduate scholarships, business commercialization and the Welcome Reception event in April.
Major Corporate Real Estate/Site Selection Conference Coming to Oklahoma
Oklahoma hosted its first-ever International Asset Management Council convention in September 2008. Over 300 national site location consultants and real estate executives from across the world attended the conference in Oklahoma City. The delegates, many from Fortune 500 companies, are responsible for all phases of corporate site location services. While here, they learned firsthand about Oklahoma’s many advantages for new business investment.
First-Ever National Venture and Seed Fund Conference Comes to Oklahoma
The Roundtable is a host sponsor of the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds (NASVF) who will hold their 2009 Annual Conference in Oklahoma City, Sept. 14-16.
The National Association of Seed and Venture Funds organization of innovation capital leaders: private, public and non-profit organizations committed to building their local economies by investing in local entrepreneurs. Little Rock, Arkansas hosted the 14th Annual Conference in 2007. Detroit will host the 15th Annual Conference in 2008. This is the first time a national investment conference of this magnitude has been held in Oklahoma.
Networking is a key benefit of the Association, and the Annual Conference is its most important networking event. Participants share their knowledge of the seed and venture capital industry and discuss the best strategies and tools for building and managing strategic investment programs and institutions. Participants meet with professionals from outside their local networks, making one-on-one contact with specialized practitioners and discussing new methods of facilitating capital formation.
Journey To Excellence Symposium
The Roundtable was a major sponsor of the “Journey To Excellence Symposium”
April 6, 2009, 8:30 – 1:15, Reed Center, Midwest City
The symposium featured Oklahoma Companies on “Fortune’s 100 Best Companies To Work For” list:
- Devon Energy Corp.
- QuikTrip
- Chesapeake Energy Corp.
- American Fidelity Assurance Co.
This “first-ever” event is targeted to Oklahoma CEO’s and HR executives. This was a rare and great opportunity to learn their “best practices” processes and systems. Best practices processes and systems for corporate benchmarking.
The Oklahoma Quality Awards Foundation
The Oklahoma Business Roundtable is a long-time supporter of The Oklahoma Quality Awards Foundation. The Foundation created the Oklahoma Quality Award in 1993 to promote and reward Performance Excellence within our state.
Modeled after the respected and prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Oklahoma Quality Award is an important benchmark for Oklahoma companies on the path of continuous performance improvement.
The Awards are presented by the Governor in November at a special luncheon at the Governor’s Mansion, hosted by the Business Roundtable.
Project Boomerang Lures ‘Elsewhere Oklahomans’
The following is an article by Steven Hendrickson (Roundtable Chairman – 2007-2008) and current Chairman of the Governor’s Council on Workforce and Economic Development.
With all the unsettling national news about recession, layoffs and unemployment, it may seem strange to be talking about labor shortages, but that’s what we face in Oklahoma.
The state’s 2009 employment outlook is vastly better than the nation’s, and Oklahoma employers will continue to confront shortages in all kinds of jobs. Some of the most difficult challenges involve college-trained managers, engineers, executives and other knowledge workers.
That’s why the Oklahoma Department of Commerce has launched Project Boomerang, a wide-ranging campaign to round up former Oklahomans and bring them home.
Overall, Oklahoma’s high-wage knowledge-based sector has been projected to need more than 125,000 new and replacement workers over the next 10 years. The jobs are in healthcare, oil and gas, accounting and management, law, architecture and engineering, high-tech start-ups, and many other fields. They pay an average of $52,900 a year, more than 50 percent above the state’s average. And if that seems low to an outsider, we would point out that it equates to more than $100,000 in, for example, Los Angeles dollars.