| Article excerpt from Amarillo Globe News, June 7, 2006 Web-posted Wednesday, June 7, 2006 Taking the FirstStep Finalists vie for grants to expand, market ideas By Jim McBride jim.mcbride@amarillo.com Four finalists are now in the hunt for $10,000 grants from West Texas A&M Enterprise Network's FirstStep Innovation Challenge.
FirstStep challengers are seeking up to $10,000 to establish, expand, develop or advance a "basic business" or "product idea." The network, which awards up to three $10,000 grants per quarter, sets specific guidelines for what constitutes a "basic business" or "product idea." A basic business is defined as an enterprise that sells its products or services outside the local trade area. A product idea may be a tangible product or an intangible service that meets the basic business requirement. A panel of judges recently selected finalists from several potential challengers. This month, judges will meet again to select the FirstStep grant winners. Jay Perdue, owner of Amarillo's Perdue Acoustics, has developed a product dubbed "The Rectangle Finder," which he said will help product designers cut rectangular shapes to exact specifications. The device, made of eight flat pieces of aluminum, can be used in numerous types of applications."It's a pattern maker basically, and it works really, really well." Perdue said he came across the idea while making odd-shaped acoustical panels developed at his north Amarillo company and decided "The Rectangle Finder" could have much broader uses. "It saves literally thousands of dollars to put in acoustic panels. You can do this to put in glass, sheet rock, paneling, you name it," he said. "It just saves making wrong cuts whenever you're on anything like that." |