A team of graduates from Rider University recently placed third in the national Small Business Institute Consulting Project of the Year competition. The competition, founded in 1976, provides college students with valuable opportunities to engage with direct client interaction and analysis. Since 1998, Rider University has participated in the competition and has accumulated a total of 40 top 10 finishes in both the undergraduate and graduate divisions.
Dr. Ron Cook, a professor of entrepreneurial studies and director of Rider’s SBI program, expressed his pride in the students’ achievements. He praised Rider University’s outstanding performance in the competition, highlighting how it showcases what can be accomplished when exceptional students collaborate to develop practical and effective solutions for clients.
The team that finished third included Kaitlyn Kurfuss ’23, Lindsey Mulrooney ’23, Doris Martin ’23 and Ryan Dougherty ’23. They worked on creating a consulting report for Wolf Tree Wilderness Therapy in Ithaca, New York as part of a fall 2022 consulting class led by Dr. Cook. Wolf Tree specializes in wilderness therapy programs and mindful outdoor experiences within the psychotherapy and wilderness therapy industries. The students’ report proposed innovative strategies to enhance and optimize Wolf Tree’s brand presence within the wilderness therapy sector aiming to attract more clients and increase revenue.
Kurfuss shared her thoughts on working with Wolf Tree stating that hands-on experience with a real business is crucial for learning about managing various aspects of running a business such as marketing, finances, legal considerations among others which textbooks can only provide so much information about. Additionally, David Molnar ’76 Rider’s entrepreneur-in-residence and former vice president of sales at Heraeus Sensor Technology provided mentoring and industry expertise to the team through weekly meetings
