MBA Alum Wins Tech Valley Green Business Plan Competition

An MBA alumnus served as CFO of the winning team of the Inaugural Tech Valley Regional Business Plan Competition, beating out finalists from Clarkson University, Union College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and also from the University at Albany’s School of Business and College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

Robert Hymes ‘08 (second from right), who works as a Business Analyst for the SI Group, is no stranger to creating business plans for green concerns.  For required MBA class, The Initiation of Enterprise Management, structured around researching and creating a business plan,Hymes completed a project related to LEED, green building standards, compliance.  Not only was his project “green” but looking back on it, Hymes said that he was pretty green at the time.  More experience came in the form of a project pairing MBA candidates with students from the UAlbany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Hymes helped UAlbany CNSE doctoral student Fernando Gomez Baquero create an executive summary for a business plan for wind turbines.  They won that contest, the precursor to this year’s Tech Valley Regional Business Plan Competition, and were awarded $250.

Though every victory is sweet, that first win must pale beside his current honor. For the winning project, Hymes’ team, BESS-Technologies, was awarded support to launch their start-up company: $10,000 cash, $8,000 in legal services from Heslin, Rothenberg, Farley, and Mesiti, PC, and $1,000 in consulting services from ECG Consulting Group Inc.  

After completing his degree in 2008, Hymes maintained his relationship with nanotechnology students. This spring, he teamed up with scientists who developed a lightweight automobile battery.  Their product touts a 50% decrease in weight and volume, combined with a 50% increase in power – significant factors for electric and hybrid cars. Hymes, as team CFO, believes that the dramatic value proposition propelled their team to the finals and on to receive the top honors.  He said, “It was an easy sell.”

Though Hymes was proud of their execution of the project, winning the whole enchilada came as a surprise. He credits his impressive teammates. “The members of my team are all at the Nano school pursuing graduate degrees. They have undergraduate degrees from Louisiana Tech, the University of California at Irvine and an ancillary team member from Cal Tech.  There were some very smart people involved, with some novel ideas with emerging science.”

Hymes has a science background, including an associate’s degree in chemistry, an undergraduate degree in math, and previous work as a lab technician at a pharmaceutical company. But he left the science to the scientists, instead focusing on the business end of the project. He explained, “I am more of a practical person.  I think, ‘How would you sell that?’”

He appreciates the opportunity to work with students from CNSE. He said, “Working together, we can take the information and capitalize on it. It’s a win-win situation that ought to be developed further.”

School of Business Dean Donald S. Siegel has a strong commitment to promoting student entrepreneurship.  He said, “The business plan competition serves as a focal point of our new undergraduate program in entrepreneurship and other initiatives to promote technological and social entrepreneurship. It also complements our efforts to use our new School of Business Building as the catalyst for effective commercialization of ideas and intellectual property developed at the university. The School of Business wants to create new firms and new jobs for the Capital Region."

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