 |
 |
 |
Spring 2005 |
||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
|
Cover Story
|
|
|
Entrepreneurial spirit thrives in CoE students From unwrapping Egyptian mummies to making the tastiest ice cream around to producing an on-line game show, the entrepreneurial spirit thrives among alumni who launched their enterprises while engineering students at Iowa State. Chris Clover (PhDME’96) is president and CEO of Mechdyne/Fakespace, a Marshalltown company that provides interactive visualization solutions for industry, government, and education. Clover says the foundation for his success was built at Iowa State. “I learned from people like Jim Bernard and Carolina Cruz-Neira in the Virtual Reality Applications Center,” Clover says. “They exposed me to technology I wouldn’t have had a chance to see any other way.” Clover’s company built many of the VR exhibits at the new Iowa Hall of Pride in Des Moines. The firm also worked with the British Museum in London, helping archaeologists visualize mummies using magnetic resonance imaging. The mummies could be “unwrapped,” so to speak, in virtual reality, illustrating to audiences how a king or pharaoh might have died. Will Schroeder and T. J. Paskach are prime examples of the entrepreneurial spirit on campus. While working on their PhDs in chemical engineering, they invented a new way to flash-freeze ice cream, giving the treat superior texture and flavor. In addition to building ice cream-making machines, today the two are franchising their Blue Sky Creamery label. “We want our machines to be reliable, efficient, and easy to use because the more ice cream our franchisees sell, the more successful the whole system will be,” says Schroeder. Joe Hynek, a PhD student in mechanical engineering, won the Pappajohn New Venture Business Plan competition in 2002. With his $5,000 prize, Hynek started a company called CactusJo.com. That enterprise is now Pumptown Publishing, an Internet-based marketing company focused on Hynek’s family band, which has recorded two albums. His first Internet company produced videos and an on-line game show. |
|
|
|||
 |
|
 |
|
||||||
|
|
||||||||
