June 2003: Vol. 82, No. 3

GMOA celebrates exhibition openings with elaborate period-themed parties
Young at Art

In a mock-1950s living room, guests in cocktail attire nibble on rat-pack hors d'oeuvres, as a jazz band plays cool tunes in the background. This may sound like an evening at Hef's place, but it's just another period-themed Young at Art event at the Georgia Museum of Art, whose after-hours parties attract students and elderly museum patrons alike.

Volunteers in Regency costume greet guests at After Hours @GMOA: Le Beau Monde, hosted by the Young at Art committee to celebrate the exhibition "Romantics and Revolutionaries: Regency Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, London."

"For one evening, the museum was suddenly Holly Golightly's apartment, right down to the Thunderbird at the curb," says Tim Brown, president-elect of the board of directors. On that occasion, the Young at Art party was celebrating the opening of The American Environment: Decorative Arts of the Mid-20th Century.

Since its inception in February 2000, Young at Art parties have been held four times a year. The inaugural party, "Latin Night Happy Hour," kicked off an exhibition of the "Masterworks from the San Carlos National Museum of Art, Mexico City."

"We thought it would be great if we could get 100-200 people interested in that party and then start building a core group from there," says Sandi Turner, chair of Young at Art for the Friends of GMOA Board of Directors. "But 850 people showed up! We realized very quickly that we were filling a real need in the art community."

Since that memorable first night success, the museum has attracted thousands of guests to exhibitions of regency portraits, on early 20th century New York, and modern French artwork.

"We look at an exhibition and say, "How can we make this a fun party?" says Wendy Cooper, director of membership services.

For the event focusing on "Romantics and Revolutionaries: Regency Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery" in July 2002, the Young at Art committee created a photo booth where partygoers dressed up in regency costumes and had their pictures taken. At "New York Night" in January 2001, live jazz piano music enlivened the atmosphere as guests toured "In the City: Urban Views 1900-1940." At "After Hours @ GMOA: American in Paris" guests sampled gourmet cuisine. French wine and cheese tasting complemented the evening.

Organizers are proud of the age range of their guests—"8 to 80," says Turner—and of the fact that Young at Art events have brought newcomers to the museum. "It's a great way to meet people!" says Turner.

If you'd like to become a member of the Georgia Museum of Art, or be added to the listserv, contact Wendy Cooper (706/542-0437 or wcooper@uga.edu).

—Ali Pedalino

Bluegrass music fills the air!

Every Tuesday and Thursday at noon—under a canopy of trees near the ecology building—professors, students, staff members, and alums get together to pick wooden string instruments. For four years, rain or shine, the group has gotten to strum down-home melodies for all those lucky enough to be on South Campus during lunch.

"We used to play downtown but the police didn't want the pedestrians to get distracted and crowd up the sidewalks," says Ned Gardnier (PhD '02) about the musicians' move to their on-campus performance spot.

Guitars, mandolins, banjoes, and fiddles are the instruments of choice for the group, which consists of five or six regular members but can get as large as 15. They play a style that ranges between "old-time" (popular at dances in the 1800s) and "bluegrass." The melodies are catchy, deceptively simple, and when the band is on, hypnotic. According to fiddler Christian Lopez, the acoustic clan knows more songs than he can count. "We are thrilled to have anyone play—as long as they don't have to plug in."

Smoke detector business plan wins $100,000 prize
These kids are smart!

A unique product, a rock-solid business plan and a well-rehearsed sales pitch helped a team of MBAs from UGA's Terry College of Business take home the grand prize and $100,000 in financing from the 20th annual Global MOOT Corp competition.

The team's plan for manufacturing and marketing the KidSmart Vocal Smoke Detector, a combination smoke detector-digital voice recorder, helped the Terry entrepreneurs beat 29 other teams from some of the world's top business schools.

In the final-five round of the competition, held at UT-Austin on May 3, the KidSmart team beat new venture ideas from the University of Texas, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, the University of Oregon, and the University of Western Ontario. Among the other business schools competing were teams from Oxford, Michigan, North Carolina, Penn, Chicago, and the London Business School.

KidSmart team (left to right, Kerry Moher, Matt Ferris, Doug Ghertner, Bruce Black) hopes to have product in stores this year.

Matthew Ferris, Bruce Black, Kerry Moher, and Doug Ghertner all graduated on May 9 and all intend to be working for KidSmart full-time within the next two years, a goal that seems all the more attainable in light of their recent successes.

KidSmart was invented to solve a problem only recently recognized by fire safety experts and researchers. Children experience deeper R.E.M. sleep patterns than adults and often are not awakened by the piercing alarms of conventional smoke detectors. They are, however, awakened consistently by the sound of a parent's voice calling their name. The KidSmart Vocal Smoke Detectors, each with a non-removable, 10-year lithium battery, allow parents to record a set of escape instructions customized to a child's home.

Brent Routman, one of the inventors of the KidSmart VSD, is a Minnesota patent attorney who used to work as an administrator in UGA's School of Law. Looking to build a management team for his company quickly and economically, he contacted Charles Hofer, who is the Terry College's Regents Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship and faculty advisor for UGA's business plan teams.

Ferris says the team was rested and ready on the last day of MOOT Corp competition and specifically asked to be the last team to present in the final round. "We were optimistic going into the finals," he says, "then we just stepped up and knocked the cover off of it."

Ferris, who is the president of KidSmart Corp, was a vice president of business development with GE Capital Corp. before entering the Terry MBA program. He says the team hopes to have the smoke detectors on retail store shelves by the end of the year.

"The KidSmart team clearly has a business idea that meets a burning need," says Gary Cadenhead, director of the MOOT Corp program at UT-Austin. "I see them doing very well in the marketplace."

In 1998, Terry College MBAs not only won first place at MOOT Corp, they also had three other teams in the competition, which led contest organizers to change the rules limiting universities to no more than two invitations. In 2002, a Terry College team called Aqua Vitae Enterprises finished second overall.

KidSmart arrived at MOOT Corp on a roll after finishing second in the Carrot Capital Business Plan Competition, where they arranged for $1 million in financing from the venture capital firm and contest sponsor, Carrot Capital.

"We're feeling a lot less pressure about the financing part of the plan," says Ferris. "Now we'll be able to focus more on the business operations plans, which is what we enjoy anyway."

—Jim Kvicala

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