FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2007
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 118 ISSUE 54
AWARDS
Business plan earns scholarship bucks
BY JEFF DETERS ideters@kansan.com
Julio Mata Jr. has never set foot in a tanning salon.
But his business plan for a bilingual tanning salon has won a national award and earned him a $2,000 renewable four-year scholarship.
Mata, a Kansas City, Kan., freshman majoring in business management, won first place at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Bizfest, a competition and training program for high school and college students interested in a career in business. The competition, which ran from Sept. 19-22 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, required students to create a business plan complete with financial information. But Mata was, at one time, without a plan at all.
In regionals last spring, Mata, a then-high school senior, was still searching for the right
were due. One of his trainers opened a phone book and on it were ads for tanning salons. Mata began his research at about midnight and stayed up until 4 a.m. working on his new plan. Mata's late-night work paid off, however, as he finished second at regionalists.
"I was confident in myself when I presented it," he said. "So that's what helped me, I didn't think I was going to place second, but I thought I'd be in the top three."
Mata said the concept of a bilingual tanning salon was incorporated because he speaks Spanish and English and thought the salon would be better equipped to serve customers.
At the Bizfest finals in September, Mata was again up until the wee hours of the morning getting more accurate financial numbers in regards to loans, rent, utility bills and other expenses. Mata was rewarded again but this time with the first-place award.
"I guess I work better under pressure," he
In addition to the award and scholarship, Mata has been offered an all-expensespaid trip to attend the USHCC Legislative Conference in March, an internship this summer with the USHCC in Washington, D.C., and another summer internship with Sprint.
Mata said one of the things he learned from the competition was the importance of networking. He said meeting people from Sprint and Google helped him learn a great deal about managing finances of big businesses. Mata said in the future he wanted to work in international business.
Susana Rodriguez, Kansas City, Kan. freshman, also competed at Bizfest. Rodriguez, a French and pre-medicine major, submitted a business plan called HealthCARE for All. It featured a clinic for Hispanics and uninsured people.
She said she chose that idea because a year ago her dad was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and his medical coverage expired, mak-
Rodriguez did not place at nationals but said she made new friends and enjoyed networking with business professionals.
"In Puerto Rico I met so many people that I have a lot in common with, and we still keep in touch," she said.
Carlos Gomez, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said that during the past five years Kansas City-area students had routinely placed in the top three of the competition but never first until this year.
"They did tremendous," he said. "We are very proud of them."
Rodriquez, who might someday want to open her own clinic, offered a suggestion to those interested in a business career: Always ask for the business cards of people you meet.
"You never know when you might need to contact them," she said.
Andrew Warker/KANSAN
11. 01.2007 = JAYPLAY
Julio Mata, Kansas City, Kan., freshman, won a renewal of $20,000 scholarship for his business model for a bilingual tanning salon. Mata won the first place at Rifftown College in September in San Juan.
THE LONGEST LEAP
Drop in the drop zone and feel the freedom of falling fast and far By Nathan Gill
On a cold October day, Emily Reimer jumped out of a plane. After about 45 seconds of freefall, she pulled the chord of her parachute, but was falling blind. Condensation from her breath had frozen hard on her helmet's visor and the earth was a blue and brown blob. Though her hands were too frozen to remove the visor, she orchestrated a safe landing in a field.
Most of Reimer's 150-plus skydiving jumps have not been thatcarearious.Shesayskyding isn't dangerous, if you're safe, and that its participants are not the stereotypical adrenaline junkies. She says it can be an exciting sport as much as a peaceful float from earthly troubles and cares.
She says a typical skydive lasts less than ten minutes, with most of the time spent floating under a parachute. For Reimer, the excitement of skydiving comes in the approximately 45 seconds of freefall, when you can do all kinds of aeronautical stunts. Her favorite technique is to fall straight down, head first.
"It's how I relax," says Reimer, president of the KU Skydiving Club and Wichita Junior. "You have a hard week, it's like, I need some air."
Skydiving doesn't intimidate Reimer. She got her "A" license, which allows her to jump without supervision, only six weeks after she began jumping in July 2006. She says it takes most people six months to complete. She also has a "B" license and a coach rating, all through the United States Parachute Association.
Jeremy Strumph, the skydiving club's adviser and a University grant writer, says there are three basic ways to fall from an airplane: relative work.
"It's incredibly freeing," she says. "You don't think about anything else except your body and the wind."
free flying or with wing suits.
Relative work is when a group of skydivers make formations, like circles or diamonds, together in the air. Free flying is a technique where skydivers orient themselves to fall head or feet first, which makes them fall faster. Wing suits are special full-body jumpsuits that perform like human hang gliders.
This fact has made skydiving possible for Julia Brandes, Hannover, Germany, graduate student, who has a fear of heights.
Struemph, who recently surpassed 600 jumps, skydives about every weekend at Skydive Kansas, a skydiving company in Osage City, just south of Topeka. He earns money at Skydive Kansas by recording or photographing other people's jumps.
"The majority of people who I meet doing this aren't adrenaline junkies," Struemph says of the skydiving clientele, which includes professionals like doctors and lawyers, students and average Janes and Joes.
Both Struemph and Reimer say that skydiving doesn't feel like falling. Because the airplane a skydriver rides up in is cruising at around 120 mph, and a belly-to-earth freefall happens at about the same speed, you don't get that stomach-in-your-throat feeling people get when, say, riding a roller coaster. The most joltting experience in a typical skydive happens when you open your parachute, decelerating you to about 30 mph, or when you hit the ground upon landing.
the ground was different than looking precariously down from a tall building. She said that though you feel and hear the loud, constant whooshing of air against your body and face, the vast expanse of earth below
"Yes, I had a fear of heights, but when I stepped out of the plane I had something else to worry about," she says.
Brandes went skydiving just once, with Reimer, her roommate. She said the view from thousands of feet above
Though Brands suffered some motion sickness upon landing, she said the experience was a good one overall and that
doesn't seem to approach you with alarming speed. She says you don't feel the height.
A few tips to get your fall off on the right foot:
Proper Planning
Choose your dropzone carefully before scheduling a jump or paying in advance. The United States Parachute Association has received complaints about online referral services that do not
match clients with the nearest dropzone locations or best price.
See www.uspa.org/about/index.htm#consumeralert for more information.
Ask about weight limits.
The equipment and planes dropzones use, government
regulations, the type of dive being performed and the business' own safety preferences are all factors in determining how heavy a skydiver can be.
Don't wear your sandals while skydiving, unless you want to know how Fred Flintstone feels
Heed the wise narrator of Skydive Kansas' instructional video;
when he puts the brakes on his car.
"The key to a good exit is in the hips. You can accomplish this by squeezing your butt cheeks together."
Source: United States Parachute Association
Bill Hubbell is a tandem skydiving instructor at Skydive Kansas who's logged more than 1,600 jumps. He says that at Skydive Kansas, first-time skydivers get training from an instructional video (see it here: www.skydivekansas.com/tandemclass/tandemclass) and from instructors before their jump.
it helps that first time filers go tandem with an instructor and receive training prior to the jump.
He said that motion sickness isn't common, unless you're prone to it, and that two of the most important things to remember on your first jump are to arch your body during freefall,
like a badminton birdie, and to keep your feet up upon landing.
"The landings are generally pretty soft," he says. "It's kind of like sliding into home plate."
There are several dropzones, or skydiving businesses, in Kansas and around Kansas City. Most offer first-time tandem skydives at about $200, and some offer seasonal, student, scheduling or other discounts. Some quick Googling will help you find the best prices and locations.
Hebbell says there are a million reasons to go skydiving, whether you do it for the adrenaline, comradery or a sense of accomplishment.
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