Meet the Entrepreneurs

Current Students

Maxwell Murray '12

Maxwell Murray has crafted a business that engages his two passions: skiing and heavy equipment. While attending Silver Lake Regional High School, in Kingston, Massachusetts, Max built an excavation and landscaping company which at its peak employed 10 adults and operated a fleet of heavy equipment. In the winters, Max worked in mountain operations and as a ski patrol member at a ski resort in New Hampshire. Max won a prestigious McKelvey Scholarship awarded to promising student entrepreneurs and came to Champlain.

In BYOBiz since freshman year, Max dabbled in various web business concepts before returning to his true passions. Max’s latest venture is Mountain Ventures, LLC, which provides consulting services to improve the efficiency of snow making and grooming operations and training services to small and medium sized ski areas. In addition, Max hopes that Mountain Ventures will provide the platform for his long held dream, to establish a snowcat based ski resort. This August, Max and his team traveled to British Columbia to evaluate a potential ski area for redevelopment to his vision. Max is currently undertaking discussions with the government of British Columbia to gauge their receptivity to his new vision for the resort and to negotiate peripheral infrastructure investment by the BC government.

Marguerite Dibble '12

Marguerite Dibble is a senior Game Art & Animation major and co-founder of Birnamwood Games, a professional game design company she created with a small group of fellow Champlain students. Marguerite and her team are currently getting ready to launch “Loc”, a spacial reasoning puzzle game. The iPad version is expected to be market (on iTunes) in Spring, 2012. The game is described as a mental challenge for puzzle lovers, with a depth and artistry not found in most puzzle games. “It’s bringing a 2D puzzle to a 3D level,” says Dibble, who chose Champlain specifically for the opportunities she knew BYOBiz could provide. Marguerite is excited about the upcoming release of “Loc” and hopes to develop more games with her company in the future.

Josh Cohen '15

Josh Cohen is DJStereoshock! An international DJ and electronic dance music composer and producer straight out of New Jersey, Josh is in his first year at Champlain. Josh has been interested in music for many years, but has been working on his professional music career for over a year and a half. Since coming to Champlain, Josh has been constantly in his office studio working on new music, and has been focusing much of his time while in BYOBiz on the business side of his career. “I’ve been working on branding for my company, and I’m really big into using social media to promote my music”. Currently, his beats are broadcast weekly to over 250,000+ people on 107.1 FM or at fixationradio.com Fridays 12-1 AM. Josh hopes to begin touring the international DJ circuit within the next five years.

BYOBiz Alumni

Alex Brandstetter '10

Alex Brandstetter was a International Business major, from Newport, Vermont. Alex started Slam for Sudan, a student run fund raising event. The "Slam" features star high school basketball players from around Vermont competing in a skills competition which includes slam dunk, three point shooting, and point guard skills contests. All of the net proceeds (over $14,000 last year) are donated to The Global Reach Partnerships, a local non-profit which helps new refugees to the community. In March, Slam for Sudan held its second successful event, and Alex hopes it will become an ongoing event at Champlain.

In Alex's final semester at Champlain, he founded Entourage Media Group International, a marketing agency that now has offices in the US and Australia

Jade Jenny '10

Jade Jenny, a Business major from South Burlington, Vermont, graduated in May (summa cum laude). Following his passion for health and fitness, Jade founded Champlain Valley Crossfit ( http://www.champlainvalleycrossfit.com ) during his senior year at Champlain. CVCF is a fitness studio based around group classes geared to functional fitness and an ever evolving program of custom exercise and nutritional education. Jade opened CVCF in September and reports that he is approaching breakeven, months ahead of forecast.

Alex Fuchs '11

Alex Fuchs is from Lexington, Massachusetts who graduated from Minuteman Technology High School. Alex started 4 Less U.S. which offers certified pre-owned consumer electronics, for prices much lower than retail. Following some supply chain challenges, Alex is repositioning the company as a business to business web/fulfillment services company. This fall, Alex also found the time to establish a first responder club on campus which will provide real time first responder services for college events and support to the surrounding community.

Jeffrey Bartley '09

Jeff founded Fanranter.com, a website for fanatical sports fans while at Champlain. Like many new ventures caught in the economic downturn, Fanranter encountered difficulty raising needed capital and the planned launch of the website was shelved in favor of "Plan B", a low cost launch using social media. To pay the bills, Jeff looked to his second passion, politics, and found a position on the campaign staff of US Senatorial candidate Len Britton http://www.lenbritton.com/. Jeff rose quickly and is currently serving as campaign Director for the Britton campaign.

Andrew Hammond '11

Andrew Hammond majored in Web Development and Design. Andrew is from Alexandria, Minnesota, and graduated from Jefferson Senior High School. Andrew’s business, Tremorlab, develops software, as well as rapid social and mobile web development, including several complex websites for industrial customers. Currently, Andrew is working on an "in-house" project, the creation of a website (Red Cup) offering classifieds and other content targeting college students.