Newark Valley participants in the 2015 Greater Binghamton Scholastic Challenge, from left, are Overall Individual Champion Kylieray Stephens; Food Service Individual Champion Lillie Caskey; Newark Valley Teacher/Advisor Kathleen Alexander; Newark Valley team members Cody Cornell, Jordan Burlingame, and Josh Kline; Consumer Products Individual Champion Hunter Osborn; and Consumer Services Individual Champion Chris Dutcher.
Pictured are overall team champions Matthew Colosi, left, and Dayne Feehan from Windsor High School. The teammates hold the many prizes and awards that came from their product, an automated goggle cleaner for dirt track racers activated by voice command.
Newark Valley has a history of success at the Greater Binghamton Scholastic Challenge (GBSC). They won the first year’s event, featuring six local schools, with a business plan to create clothing for people who are undergoing dialysis treatment. This year, they took home first place in four out of six individual competitors in Consumer Services category.
Awards in the yearlong competition were handed out during a gathering at SUNY Binghamton on Wednesday, May 27.
“Look what’s happening now,” Virginia ‘Ginny’ Amato said, noting that there were 11 schools involved in this year’s GBCS competition. Amato, who retired from Broome Community College where she was the Career Pathways Director, said she co-founded the GBSC with Modern Marketing Concepts (MMC) CEO Dan Babcock in 2010.
“This shows Modern Marketing Concepts has an interest in the community,” Addison Brassard said. He is one of several MMC employees who traveled to the schools to mentor their teams and help individuals develop their GBSC projects. Brassard said that the MMC mentors had been involved with the schools since November, but “we really got rolling in January.” The mentors worked with the students throughout the entire process, brainstorming, developing business plans to get a realistic business development experience.
In the 2015 GBSC 175 students participated, with winning teams receiving scholarships to put towards developing their business ideas or to go towards their college education.
At Newark Valley, Kylieray Stephens won 1st place in the individual Health Care, Human Services, and Education category with Ray of Hope Hippotherapy Camp, which would use horses for speech, physical, and mental therapy for military service veterans. Stephens was the GBSC Overall Individual Champion, and received the Barry Newman Entrepreneur of the Year Award worth $1,000.
Also winning from Newark Valley were Lillie Caskey, who won the individual Food Services category with Mac-on-Track, a Gourmet Macaroni and Cheese business plan. Chris Dutcher won the individual Consumer Services category for Chosen Apple Productions. Hunter Osborn won the individual Consumer Products category with My Beloved Music, a retail music store.
Overall Team Champion was Windsor Central School District’s Torqued Up Goggle Company, to create goggles for motocross and other outdoor sports that can remove dirt and debris from goggles using voice activation for safety. Team members Dayne Feehan and Matthew Colosi were a complimentary team, with Feehan coming from a racing family and his own racing experience, while Colosi brought business acumen and an interest in marketing.
The team demonstrated the voice coding which would activate the mechanism to clean a driver’s goggles on a cell phone. Feehan held the phone on a table while advisors and others pounded on it, and spoke commands. When he played back the recording, only his voice was clearly recognizable, while the cacophony was only a mutter in the background.
“The microphone would be in the helmet nose piece, inside so the helmet would block the noise,” Feehan said, “plus the rider is on top of the bike, with the noise directed towards the back below them.”
Windsor Business Teacher Ryan Alo was impressed with GBSC. “They start with just a book concept, and now they put that into reality,” Alo said, “they took their idea and turned it into a tangible product.” Alo also had praise for MMC, saying, “they put their money where their mouth is through this competition.”
