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

“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

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.

As president and chief executive officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri, he heads America’s largest foundation dedicated to advancing entrepreneurial success.

“Entrepreneurial activity is what drives the economy and it’s not the economy which shrinks or expands in bad and good times, it is the firms that shrink or grow.  It’s the high growth firms which contribute to the prosperity of the economy,” he said.

The fundamental American drive is innovation,” he said.

“It is imperative that we see entrepreneurship as central to our economic life, because it is the only way to maintain the leverage we need to remain an economic superpower — and to continue to enjoy our standard of living.”

Entrepreneurship is the process in which one or more people take economic risk to create a new organization that will exploit a new technology or innovative process that generates value to others.

Schramm cited Oklahoma’s success – in referencing a recent CNN/Fortune study which ranked Oklahoma City and Tulsa high as a favorable location for small business start-ups.

“Entrepreneurial firms start in places, economic activity is in places.  The winning locations will be places that have a cultural and policy climate supporting the growth of entrepreneurial companies,” Schramm said.

Schramm said 40% of all GDP in the US is from firms that did not exist in 1980 and most net new jobs created in the US come from firms less than 5 years old.

He added, “The fastest growing firms in the United States are started by people who are 39 years old – on average.”

Comprised of over 110 top Oklahoma corporations and business organizations, the Roundtable provides important business development advice and assistance to the Governor, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and other state leaders. Private funding is needed for business development efforts when state appropriated funds cannot be used.

The Roundtable helps fund important business promotion activities to spur the expansion and recruitment of new business in Oklahoma. Roundtable members also play a key role in contacting and hosting both domestic and international clients.

To date, the Roundtable has provided support for hundreds of state and regional economic development promotional activities resulting in over 500 corporate investments throughout Oklahoma.

Tom Maxwell

Tom Maxwell, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Flintco Companies, assumed chairmanship of the Oklahoma Business Roundtable on July 1.

Maxwell is joined in a 2009-2010 leadership role by Vice Chairman Mike Anderson, President, Presbyterian Health Foundation and Secretary-Treasurer Don Walker, President and CEO, Arvest Bank.

Maxwell said, “I look forward to working with the entire Roundtable membership during the next year. While Oklahoma has fared better than most states during the current economic downturn, it is critically important that we support and strengthen business development and global recruitment efforts targeted to wealth creating companies.”

Mike Anderson

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.

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.

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.

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.