Raptor Tank
The Raptor Tank was established with the goal of providing Montgomery College students funding to support business ideas for new or existing business ventures. The competition emphasizes student empowerment as part of the Macklin Business Institute’™s (MBI) experiential learning initiative. Students lead and implement the program throughout the year with faculty advisement. Notably, students generate the funds awarded to the competition finalists, using profits earned in the MBI’™s student-run We Proudly Serve Starbucks Cafe© on the Rockville campus.
A significant benefit of this program is the emphasis on collaboration between MC students, faculty, and staff across all three campuses. A group of business faculty from the Montgomery College Rockville campus, including Brian Baick, Susan Blumen, Georgia Buckles, Joanne Frazier, and Hannah Weiser, as well as MBI staff and faculty, including Stephen Lang, Linda Youngentob, and Lindsay Yare, and most notably, students from the MBI program, worked together to design and plan the Raptor Tank for its first debut with the competition held on April 27, 2015. Menaza Fernando and Gabe Kahn were the 2015 student co-leads. Menaza speaks to the success of the first year of this program:
“The Raptor Tank project allowed me the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of different experiences and further enhance my skillset. As a student leader, I was on the frontlines collaborating with the various MC departments and prominent business individuals in the community to create this project from the ground up. I had to consider the big picture when it came to creating a timeline and planning the outcome of the project, while also being incredibly meticulous to ensure every aspect of the program would run smoothly. These leadership, communication, analytical, and interpersonal skills I developed as a leader in the Raptor Tank project are skills I still utilize to this day in every activity I partake in. Whether it is at school, work, or in any other organization, having gone through this process, I am now much more confident in my abilities to lead a team of individuals towards a common goal. As a result of the Raptor Tank experience, I have been able to continue with my successes, such as being a leader in a Consulting Fellows program, a Student Ambassador for campus, a National Case Competition Speaker, an Accounting Teaching Scholar, and other leadership roles.”
This year, Abigail Cajayon and James Linn served as leaders for the second year of this successful program. James Linn shares the following about his experience in this role:
“Given the complexity of Raptor Tank and all of the aspects necessary to put on a final business pitch competition, I had the opportunity to grow in my ability to embrace a large project and compress it into small more-manageable tasks. Being able to see other problems, events, and tasks that way has helped me to more effectively lead in other leadership positions while at MC. Having responsibility in RT showed me the necessity of delegating, prioritizing, and emphasizing time management to get things done. Moreover, working alongside another Co-Leader showed me the importance of teamwork and the progress one can accomplish while collaborating with others. I can say without a doubt that my ability to effectively embrace leadership roles has progressed a great deal through my involvement in Raptor Tank, and I would consider myself a much better leader as a result. Ultimately, I feel far more equipped moving on from MC because of the chance I had to oversee the development and implementation of RT, learn from my mistakes, and witness the final results of all our hard work.”
Abigail Cajayon notes the following regarding the Raptor Tank program:
“Raptor Tank Student C- Leader and MC Enactus Co President, the Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition was an enriching opportunity that encouraged me to develop my leadership and explore my strengthens and weaknesses. Through this invaluable hands-on experiential learning opportunity, I took on administrative roles and oversaw important tasks. I worked closely with student peers, business faculty, and media personnel throughout the academic year. In addition, I had the chance to network with local business leaders. I learned crucial skills such as delegation, communication, and teamwork. I’m extremely grateful to have experienced this early on in my career. Raptor Tank revealed my shortcomings as a leader early on giving me a chance to use the remainder of my academic career to mold my leadership style and gain an advantage in the real world. Lastly, Raptor Tank helped me to broaden my perspective with regards to the impact I can make in our community. With a great team and a fantastic vision, we can really make a positive impact on the world by supporting our student entrepreneurs. I enjoyed working with people who shared the same vision and forwarding the Enactus mission by cultivating sustainable projects.”
The Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition is open to all students, not just business majors, and represents all three of our college campuses. The program begins in early October with student-run orientations for any interested participants, who submit an Intent to Compete Form to sign up. Then, students complete an Executive Summary of a Business Plan and sign a Code of Conduct agreement by December 1st as the application for the program. The preceding business faculty, MBI staff, and student leads work together to review each submission and provide feedback regarding each submission, whether students are selected as finalists or not.
All finalists in the Raptor Tank are mentored through a series of workshops hosted by faculty experts and students to further develop the business idea and to prepare for the final Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition in front of a panel of local business owners and entrepreneurs. These workshops allow the Raptor Tank participants to network together and to receive counseling by faculty to help prepare them for starting the business venture and for the Raptor Tank competition. Each workshop is video recorded and pictures are taken to document the workshops. Faculty with expertise in each key area provide an overview and then do an activity with participants to further develop the business ventures. Additional one-on-one counseling with the business faculty both in person and electronically throughout and following the program further supports student needs.
The workshops below are run throughout the Spring semester for Raptor Tank finalists.
- Business Plan Development: Identifying the Business Concept and Conducting a SWOT Analysis;
- Identifying a target market and financial analysis (including sales projections and expenses);
- A Successful Business Pitch and Presentation Skills (using Prezi, PowerPoint, Public Speaking);
- Mock Business Pitch (a pre competition run through with feedback from a panel of faculty, staff, and student judges); and
- Competition Debrief to reflect on successes and potential improvement as well as next steps for the finalists.
The students compete in the final Raptor Tank Business Pitch Competition in April. Both Raptor Tank events had almost 300 students in attendance as well as many faculty and staff, friends and family. The MBI Cafe© provided the food and beverage for the events for free to help advertise this student-run business, and MC Copies helped to prepare the brochures and other materials like the jumbo checks awarded. MCTV also helped to photograph the event and our raptor mascot even attended! As the Raptor Tank was funded with MBI Cafe© profits for the prizes, we had students provide information about other existing MC Enactus projects prior to the Raptor Tank competition and even had career services attend to provide resume support and live help with job tools like LinkedIn on site.
For the competition, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, business leaders judged the competition, and many students connected with the judges following the competition allowing for support from the local business community as well. There was also significant support from lots of faculty, staff, and students to help with the event, again demonstrating the importance of the collaborative nature of this program.
The MBI student leads, MBI students, and MC Enactus student helpers that support the Raptor Tank learn a lot of great skills in building and presenting programs, learning new tools like our live SMS poll for the audience choice award, event planning, marketing, leadership, and teamwork. Multiple students from MBI, MC Enactus, and the college also helped in various regards, including the event day to make sure the event ran smoothly, building a video overview for the event to introduce the participants, but also in getting photo and video recordings throughout the process, building marketing materials and more. This event has been a big success and we hope to continue the momentum.
A video was created by MCTV to help promote the program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpL12mt5Iyg&feature=youtu.be. The program also aired on MCTV to over 200,000 viewers, which is accessible at the following link: https://youtu.be/_Ii2JZDmOHU?t=1s. To learn more about our finalists from the 2016 competition, see the following video: https://youtu.be/1GdCBOyCQdU
For questions or concerns regarding the Raptor Tank, please contact mcraptortank@gmail.com or Hannah R. Weiser at hannah.weiser@montgomerycollege.edu.
