EUGENE–Making a profit on deadbeats. Selling an environmentally friendly weed killer. Opening an art gallery on-line.

What do these ventures have in common? Oregon college students wrote business plans based on these ideas which will compete for thousands of dollars in prizes at the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship’s New Venture Championship, to be held in Beaverton April 27—29.

Master of Business Administration students from 20 colleges, including teams from Canada, Columbia and Scotland, will vie for a share of the $22,000 in prize money during the competition at the Greenwood Inn, 10700 S.W. Allen Blvd., Beaverton. The event, sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Lundquist Center and many of Oregon’s leading high-tech companies, will coincide with the Oregon Conference for Entrepreneurs. The competition is free and open to the public.

One entry, Capital Collection, Inc., would help turn college graduates who haven’t paid off their student loans into future good credit customers. Spokesman Scott Kirkland, a senior at the University of Portland, says the company will begin by collecting delinquent student loans, then working with the clients to build good credit ratings. Eventually, Capital Collection expects to evolve into a full-service financial institution with an existing list of clients.

Artcentral.com, entered by a team from the Oregon Graduate Institute, aims to connect interior designers and decorators with thousands of professional artists looking to sell their work. Company president Jim Hollcraft, a senior at the University of Portland, estimates the market in the United States at $1 billion annually. The company will locate work by professional artists, then put digitized images on-line and market the pieces to decorators.

One student business plan entry is for a client, Sunburst, Inc., a Eugene-based weed management specialist who is looking for investors. The company has a patent on a piece of equipment that can help remove vegetation from roadsides or backyard gardens. Owner Greg Prull needed help in writing a marketing plan and turned to a team of UO business majors to write one. The students are not principals in the company, but hope eventually to invest in the firm.

Major private-sector sponsors for the New Venture Championship include Intel Corp., inc.com, iSTART ventures, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto Software, Columbia Management Co. and The Edward Lowe Foundation.

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