Engineering Student Discovers Marketing Skills at the Isenberg School; Wins Annual Technology Innovation Challenge

Fri., Jun 20, 2008
Without question, Isenberg Scholar Brian Mullen has lived up to his Isenberg Scholarship’s aim of fostering meaningful ties among business, science, and technology. In May, Mullen, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, won the $50,000 grand prize in the UMass Amherst Technology Innovation Challenge (TIC)—with more than a little help from new-found friends in the Isenberg School’s marketing department and MBA program. In the competition—now in its third year—students, recent graduates, and faculty advisors submit technology-based business plans to a panel of judges, including technology entrepreneurs, consultants, and intellectual property specialists.

Mullen’s winning entry, Therapeutic Systems, plans to market a light-weight deep-pressure vest developed on campus for the mentally ill, especially those with autism. Having come up short in the previous year’s TIC competition, Mullen knew that he had a fantastic product idea in search of a marketing plan. To make progress, he enrolled in two Isenberg School MBA electives taught by marketing professor Tom Brashear—a marketing research course in the fall and a special topics course in marketing strategy in the spring. In the marketing research course, the class critiqued Mullen’s previous TIC executive summary and marketing surveys. “With their help, I learned how to ask more relevant questions and how to arrange those questions to yield optimal responses,” he recalls. “The course was eye-opening to me both as an engineer and an entrepreneur. I gained a greater appreciation for the customer’s perspective.”

In the follow-up course, Mullen and MBA students Rebecca Faneuf ’08 and Stephen Burrows ’08 focused on his project’s marketing plan. (Outside the course, 1st-year MBA student, Christopher Leidel also helped Mullen with financials.) Following some preliminary marketing research, Mullen realized that he had previously been hasty in identifying his principal target market—parents of mentally challenged dependents. Better to focus on school and health care professionals like occupational therapists, teachers, and speech language therapists—all who have greater leverage over their institutions’ resources and purchases. “That insight allowed me to create a distribution plan and a viable marketing strategy,” explains Mullen. “You can’t attach financials without a marketing strategy.” With his plan in place, Therapeutic Systems went on to capture the $50,000 prize, most of which Mullen immediately invested in the development of an improved vest prototype. “Winning the challenge was not an end point,” notes Mullen. “It’s been a momentum builder in bringing the vest to market.”

Photo: Team Therapeutic Systems members Brian Mullen (Engineering) and Christopher Leidel (MBA)

Click here to visit the Therapeutic Systems web site.

See photo: Brian Mullen Models His Light-Weight Therapeutic Vest