St. Cloud State University

SCSU Now

Familiar faces: alumni entrepreneurs

Monday, August 1, 2005

When the "Twin Cities Business Monthly" carries stories about successful entrepreneurs, the names and faces of SCSU graduates are likely to appear.

Alumni Rick Feuling and Rob Weber were two of five young entrepreneurs featured in the cover story of the magazine's June issue. The August issue featured alumnus Michael Helgeson with a cover photo and story.

Feuling, who graduated from SCSU this spring with a major in entrepreneurship, launched his business while he was still a student. Retail Information Technology Enterprises (www.rite.us) got its start when he customized Microsoft software to make it easy for the cashier in a retail liquor store to get the necessary information when kegs are checked out. Along with other projects, Feuling has also developed software for multiple chain stores - it senses when prices change and automatically prints new labels, at each store, for its stock. Feuling told the business magazine that he may be one of only two dozen people in the world who know as much about retail-software customization as he does.

Weber, who has yet to graduate from SCSU with his entrepreneurship major, joined up with two of his brothers to found Freeze.com five years ago. The web site they created offers free computer screensavers, wallpaper and clip art as a mechanism for inviting users to sign up for direct-marketing offers. "Entrepreneur" magazine ranked the company the 31st-fastest-growing company in the country in 2004. Weber was also featured with his partners in the cover story of the spring 2005 SCSU alumni magazine, "Outlook." Find that story with photos at www.stcloudstate.edu/news/outlook.

Helgeson is one of nine business leaders to receive the 2005 Ernst and Young "Entrepreneurs of the Year" award for Minnesota and the Dakotas, his in the consumer products category. Since he took the reins as CEO of Gold'n Plump, St. Cloud, in 1993, the company's revenue has doubled, according to the business journal. The chicken supply company, known for innovation, was the first poultry company in the nation to provide chicken breasts, drumsticks and other chicken items to grocery stores in barcode-scannable packages that all weighed the same. "Fixed-weight packaging provides so many advantages to retailers," said writers Sara Aase and Jack Gordon, "that Gold'n Plump's competitors have since been forced to adopt it."

The CEO of Gold'n Plump has been a long-time supporter of the university's Herberger College of Business, and is a member of the COB Dean's Advisory Board. The SCSU graduate is now a candidate for a national Entrepreneur of the Year award.

- Marge Proell

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