UNLV offers a helping hand for businesses large and small

When Southern Nevada entrepreneur Peter Maksymec needed help in developing a product he’d invented, UNLV was there for him.

For years, Maksymec had held a patent on his invention — the Geyser Flow Control Device, which is designed to stop water from shooting out of broken sprinkler heads.

Recently, after reading a story about UNLV’s participation in a business plan competition, he approached school administrators for guidance on how to develop such a plan for his device.

Dr. Andrew Hardin, director of UNLV’s Center for Entrepreneurship, evaluated the product and went into action. He assigned one of his MBA teams to draw up a summary and business plan, which will eventually be entered in competitions and could lead to Maksymec obtaining financing for the device.

“I don’t think I would have been able to progress with my idea without UNLV stepping forward and helping me,” Maksymec said. “They provided help with the actual technology research, the marketing research and just the drive they used to help get this project going. I’m very grateful to them.”

Maksymec is among untold numbers of Las Vegas Valley business operators getting some much-needed support from UNLV as the area struggles to rouse itself from the ongoing nationwide economic malaise.

The Lee Business School at UNLV is reaching out to provide expertise and assistance to local entrepreneurs and businesses.

The school is UNLV’s largest, with 3,500 undergraduate students, 500 graduate students and 75 faculty members. A $15 million donation from the Ted and Doris Lee family this fall allows the school to help the local business community more than ever. Two-thirds of the donation, $10 million, will fund 10 endowed professor positions to be created over eight years.

Half of the remaining $5 million will be used to establish a scholarship program for high-achieving undergraduate and graduate business students. The other $2.5 million will fund a lecture series and visiting professor program. The Lee Thought Leader Lecture Series will bring internationally recognized business innovators to campus two times a year. The Lee Visiting Professor Program will present scholars during weeklong intensive courses for business leaders.

Paul Jarley, dean of the business school, says there is unquestionably more of a need for what the school is offering now than even just a few years ago.

But even with the donation from the Lee family, the irony is that the same economic torpor that is driving more businesses and entrepreneurs to the Lee School for assistance also inhibits the university’s ability to meet that demand fully.

“We really don’t have the resources to build out, to be quite candid,” said Jarley, now in his fifth year as dean. “The same downturn that hit the business community hit us. We’ve tried to piece together what we can in those situations to help people where we can.”

The dour economic reality also means UNLV must, of necessity, be less proactive in its approach to outreach than it might like to be, Jarley says. “Because our resources are so limited here, we wait for people to come to us.”

Resources

Despite the business school feeling the economic pinch, it does offer several key resources:

• The Center for Entrepreneurship. The center provides support for research and encourages the formation of new businesses. All MBA students at UNLV are required to volunteer in the community, including writing business plans and providing small-business consulting, which includes applying analytical tools and providing recommendations for improving business.

• The Nevada Small Business Development Center. A statewide resource for business development services and training, the program provides free, confidential consulting and workshops and low-cost training. In addition, its research and analysis of the economy, environment and demographic data can help businesses, government and other organizations promote economic growth. The center is a partnership between the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Nevada System of Higher Education.

• The Center for Business and Economic Research. The center maintains economic and business databases for Las Vegas, the region and the nation. It analyzes economic and demographic effects of events and policy initiatives on Nevada and its local economies. By combining survey, statistical, marketing and research expertise with in-house computer facilities, the center is able to tailor reports to clients’ needs.

• The Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies. The institute offers real estate professionals mentoring, research, and executive and continuing education, as well as the Certified Graduate Builder series and the Commercial Real Estate Certification program. The institute’s annual Real Estate Roundtable is a gathering of industry executives who discuss real estate topics affecting the Southern Nevada community, including sustainability, economic diversity and the future of commercial development.

• Educational outreach. UNLV offers continuing education courses and a number of national certification programs among its outreach services. Programs range from sommelier certification to paralegal studies and nonprofit management and human resources. The contract training division uses UNLV faculty expertise as well as instructors from the professional community to design custom training programs for individual businesses and organizations.

In addition, faculty members work on various projects with people in the community. For example, marketing professor Jack Schibrowsky has worked with city officials in North Las Vegas.

Lending an ear

In his role as de facto father confessor for much of the local business community, Jarley has listened to all manner of problems, complaints and fears during his tenure as dean. What tops the list?

“I think it’s uncertainty,” he says. “Washington has created a lot of uncertainty about what the rules are going to look like going forward — what tax rates are going to look like, what incentives there are going to be for investment.”

Topping clients’ wish lists, he says, are help in developing business plans and training people in management decision making, which has become more data-driven.

The school has also had an increase in requests for assistance from nonprofit organizations, Jarley notes, “to help them become more efficient and have better management practices during this time of really high need that they’ve had.”

“Obviously demand for their services is up, and they’re looking for ways they can meet those demands,” he said.

For example, a number of students have worked with Three Square, Southern Nevada’s largest food bank, and St. Jude’s Ranch in Boulder City, which rescues abused, abandoned and neglected children.

Success stories

The college’s outreach efforts are paying dividends.

• One of Oliver Garner’s two companies, the Garner Group, develops products all the way from the idea stage through patents to retail shelves in places like Walmart. Garner, who also owns and operates the Music Exchange, is working on a cooling system he hopes will, among other things, make life more pleasant for American troops stationed in the Middle East. Since 2009, UNLV has been helping him develop and design the cooler.

“We’re developing the system for the military,” Garner said. “I was talking to a young man who’d just returned from Iraq. It was extremely hot there, and he was drinking a 90-degree beer. So with our system he can just take that beer, put it into our device and within one minute it’s ice cold. It’s not a blast freezer, but it chills rapidly.”

The prototype is housed at UNLV. Garner is hard at work downsizing it.

“We’ve gotten a lot of help from the business school in terms of developing the business plans and the initial draft of the cooling system,” he said.

• Anthony Alegrete, a senior marketing major at UNLV, has launched a nonprofit organization, the Jump for Joy Foundation, to create health and exercise clinics for kids. High-profile athletes from UFC and elsewhere lend their faces to help motivate kids to exercise. His for-profit group, called 18at18, provides e-books (99 cents each through a mobile app) to help young adults “achieve financial and physical health at age 18,” according to the school.

The business plan for 18at18 — which is projected to generate revenue of $2 to $3 million during its first five years — took top honors at the Governor’s Cup, a state business plan competition sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation this year.

The $20,000 prize paid for trademarks and copyrights.

• Kevin Hwang was simply too busy to turn his ideas into workable business opportunities until, attracted to the UNLV College of Business’ entrepreneurship programs, he returned to school for his MBA, graduating last year. One of his ideas, now brought to fruition, is an interactive kiosk — customers receive coupons for watching 30-second videos — that helps restaurant vendors boost sales. His company is called iAD Media. He credits the extensive networking with other entrepreneurs and executives at the school with helping ensure his success.

Not going anywhere

Despite the lingering economic malaise and a resulting drop in business startups, Jarley says venture capitalists in town still have their eyes open for opportunities. And UNLV will be there to assist them.

“One of the things we can do is help link people with ideas to all sorts of folks,” he said. “The business school “is actively engaged in the community, and trying to do what we can to promote business and economic diversification here in the valley.”