IDEA Competition Winners to be Announced May 17th!

By -

2011 Competition and Awards



IDEA Competition winners will be announced at the Awards Banquet to be held May 17, from 5:00-8:30 p.m.at the Bede Ballroom on the University of Minnesota, Crookston campus.  The event is open to the public and pre-registration is required by May 13 at http://www.ideacompetition.org/.
The IDEA Competition kicked off last fall with 23 applications.  In the ensuing months, the field was narrowed to the following select group of finalists:
•           Kristine Goddard-Anderson and Elizabeth Petersen, Craft Night Out, Thief River Falls
•           Marilyn Graff, Banner Parking Poles, McIntosh
•           John Green, EDGE Performance Products, Thief River Falls
•           Allen Aaseby, Fred Hartmann, and Chuck Odegaard, Turn@bout, Thief River Falls
•           Christopher G. Hoffman, ReNewConcepts, Bemidji
•           David W. and Andrea L. Holmes, Light Weight Concrete Domes, Fosston
•           Barrett Jesness, Hall Automation LLC, Blue Panel, Bagley
•           Jason LaValley, Jorge Prince, and Roger LaValley, The PIPEMATE, Bemidji
•           Jeff Sullivan and Arnold Kleinsasser, EquipAll GrappleHoe, Bemidji
Final awards will be determined by a judging panel comprised of members from three area equity funds, bankers, successful entrepreneurs and business development professionals.  The panel will choose up to five winners who will each receive $10,000 to advance their business idea. 
Along with the awards presentation, the IDEA Competition Awards Banquet will feature displays of some of innovative products from around the region. David Mortenson, co-founder of Anytime Fitness will deliver the keynote speech. Dennis Brazier of Central Boiler, Greenbush and Glen Brazier of MATTRACKS, Karlstad, will be inducted into the IDEA Hall of Fame. Go to http://www.ideacompetition.org/ or call 800-659-7859.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Frank and Marg Marvin

By -
Image
In honor of NMF's upcoming 30th anniversary and National Philanthropy Month, we want to celebrate the contributions of our donors! We will be highlighting a donor a day for the month of November. Please be sure to check the blog often to read about the wonderful stories of giving back to the northwest region.  If you are interested in making a difference through the services of our community foundation, our development officers would be happy to assist you. Please contact Caryl Turnow or Lisa Peterson at 218-759-2057 to learn more. Frank and Marg Marvin, Warroad The year is 1931 and a frustrated Dorrance Johnston has a degree in Engineering with no jobs to be found. Persistent and not willing to give up, he offered to work for a year without pay just to get a foot in the door. This is a mere glimpse at who Margaret “Marg” (Johnston) Marvin’s father was. Marg was born and raised in Warroad, and then met her husband Frank Marvin in their shared hometown. Both of their f...
Read more

NMF Working to Address the Region's Child Care Needs

By -
Image
Ensuring families have access to quality child care is a high priority task for NMF. Our region has the third largest deficit for child care needs in the state. We are faced with 41% of families not having access to child care spots for their children. This means 41% of families are struggling to find safe and affordable child care for their children so they can go to work. The Center for Rural Policy and Development recently published a fact sheet that provides insight on this issue. The main barriers that they pointed out were the following: Until more can be done to increase wages and/or profits for both center and family providers, the child care shortage will continue Low pay for workforce makes recruitment and retention a major hurdle. Providers feel they can't raise rates because parents can't afford to pay more. Under this scenario, providers can't make a profit or be sustainable. The high startup costs make for very high barriers to entry for the av...
Read more

Peacemaker Resources Paves the Way for Lifelong Learning in the Classroom

By -
Image
(Left to right) Caige Jambor, Sharleen Zeman-Sperle, and Stacy Bender-Fayette, SEL Specialists at Peacemaker Resources, work together to plan the upcoming school year. The mission of  Peacemaker Resources  is to "foster communication, compassion and connection leading to respectful relationships and healthier individuals and communities" and they achieve this by bringing their  social emotional learning  curriculum to elementary and middle schools around the state. They were also a recipient of the  NMF Quality of Place award in 2016 .  What makes their curriculum distinctive?   Barb   Houg, Executive Director, says,  " Its preventative approach, its relevance for children of all ages, and its lifelong impact." The curriculum that Peacemaker Resources is bringing into schools includes a number of programs -  STAR (Students Teaching Attitudes of Respect) ,  Girls Lead ,  Cultural Responsiveness ,  SEL (Social ...
Read more