March 5, 2019
COB and Miller School Win Awards at National Conference
Mike Harris, left and Dennis Barber III
Drs. Michael Harris and Dennis Barber III of the Miller School of Entrepreneurship recently attended the 2019 National Small Business Institute® (SBI) Conference in Orlando, Florida (Feb. 14-16). They both had multiple presentations at the conference including a workshop on “How to Start an SBI Program” and a Best Practice session entitled “Connecting Mentors with Student Entrepreneurs: A Regional Approach.” This presentation highlighted the unique structure and impact of the Miller School’s regional advisory councils, which are in Greenville, Wilmington, Raleigh and Charlotte.
Two College of Business student teams also won awards in the National SBI Project-of-the-Year Competition, including a first and third place finish. The winning team in the Specialized Division worked with Ayden, North Carolina’s Simply Natural Creamery to help them best determine a location for their Greenville store. The student team included Eric Barnes, Hannah Pass, Jordan Rice, Jake Ringley, Nick Venditti and Marissa Weimer.
Natalie Aynes
“We thoroughly enjoyed working alongside the ECU students as we looked to further grow our company by opening a new location,” said Natalie Aynes, event coordinator for Simply Natural Creamery. “The students worked very diligently and provided many location possibilities that provided both positive and negative options, which greatly benefited our decision-making process. I would highly recommend any local company to work alongside these students because they can devote time to your company to help better your business. They can also provide new possibilities that are well planned out, and that would ultimately benefit your company and our local community.”
The students on the third-place team in the Comprehensive Division worked with Parker’s BBQ in Greenville on Succession Planning. This team of students included Jordan Burroughs, Sarah Allen, Darren DeMauro and Quentin Jones.
Billy Parker is the owner of Parker’s BBQ. His family has been operating the business for almost 50 years. He says it was refreshing to get some “innovative ideas on how we might approach a strategic plan on how to perpetuate our family business to the next generation. I found the group assigned to consult our company to be very professional. They had a genuine interest in giving us good ideas to consider.”
Parker added, “as an alumnus of East Carolina’s College of Business, it is very encouraging to see that the quality of the students and professors is at an all-time high.”
“The COB and the Miller School of Entrepreneurship are very proud of its accomplishments at SBI this year,” said Barber. “Not only did it win awards, but Miller School reps volunteered at the event to help make it a success. The Miller School is committed to maintaining its reputation as thought leaders in entrepreneurship education and experiential learning at future SBI events.”
The SBI program in the College of Business at ECU has worked on consulting projects with regional business clients each year since 1974. An ECU team has placed in the Top 3 of the Project-of-the-Year Competition in 13 of the past 14 years, including seven national championships.
In addition to student awards, Barber won the Homer L. Saunders Mentor Award and the Best Empirical Paper Award for his paper entitled “Do Management Accounting and Control Systems Stifle Innovation in Small Firms led by Owner-Managers with High Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation? A Mediation Approach.” His co-authors included Dr. Amy McMillan in the Department of Management and Drs. Whitney Peake, LeAnne Coder and Dawn Bolton of Western Kentucky University. This article will be published in an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Small Business Strategy.
About the college: ECU’s College of Business offers a Bachelor of Science in business administration with 10 concentrations and a Bachelor of Science in hospitality management with three concentrations. Graduate programs include a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Science in accounting, Master of Science in sustainable tourism and hospitality and an accelerated Doctor of Medicine and MBA program. Also, 13 graduate certificates are available. Located in Greenville, North Carolina, it currently has more than 28,000 alumni throughout the United States. It’s one of the largest colleges of business in North Carolina.
Barber and Dr. Whitney Peake