Published: Dec. 7, 1998

Teams of students from the College of Business and Administration at the University of Colorado at Boulder will compete in the Bank One Business Plan Competition at 6:30 p.m. on Wed., Dec. 9.

The competition, which will be held in Room 200 of the College of Engineering, is free and open to the public.

The competition is hosted by the Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, a joint venture between CU's colleges of business and engineering.

Four teams of MBA students and the winner of last week's undergraduate competition will compete for prize money donated by Bank One. The first-place team will share $3,000; second place $1,250; and third place $750. The teams and their businesses from the class, co-taught by Professor Juan Rodriguez and adjunct faculty member Mike Befeler, include:

o FoodFresh.com, an Internet food shopping service that saves busy people time they would otherwise spend at a supermarket. The company is providing an easy-to-use Internet ordering process with a convenient pick up of required food items. The team members are Sara Gutterman, Scott Kohla, Dave Nichamoff, Dave Sheanin and Charles Wicht. The team's mentor is Mike Boyers of the Del Mar Group.

o 1-888-kwik Oil, a mobile oil changing service providing on-site automobile maintenance to the customer. Rather than taking time to go to a fixed location to get an oil change, customers of 1-888-kwik Oil have the service brought to them. Team members include Jeff Garner, Chris Lautemann, John Min, Jeff Nissley and Dagan White. They are mentored by Mike Newman of Paracript, LLC.

o Colorado Ascent provides exclusive Colorado backcountry ski experiences to small groups of outdoor enthusiasts. Up to four skiers are taken by snow cat to a wilderness area to ski in private luxury. The team has five members: Burke Blackman, Gerard Cote, Christine Dennis, Tobias Hemmerling and Eric Vallo. Their mentor is Gary Bloomer of Colorado Venture Management.

o The undergraduate team that designed and developed the "PocketMan" pocket music player will compete with the MBA teams Wednesday. They won $1,000 in the Bank One Undergraduate Business Plan Competition on Dec. 2. Team members include Todd Gimbel, Peter Loftsgordon, Jason Portnoy and Michael Walter. They were mentored by Dan Conser of Audio Adventures in a class taught by Steve Lawrence of the College of Business and Administration.

The winning team will go on to compete in the national business plan competition in San Diego in the spring. Bank One underwrites all the expenses of both Business Plan Competitions and the national trip by the winning team.

Greg Becker of Silicon Valley Bank, Steve Halstedt of Centennial Funds and Barbara Mowrey of Requisite Technology will judge the competition.