The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Former Flin Flonner Chelsea Allen helped develop an innovative business plan that has won kudos from a leading commerce magazine. Allen and three classmates came up with a plan for Breathe Inc., a retail outlet that would cater to people with allergies, as a project for their class at the DeVry Institute of Technology in Calgary. They were just hoping their instructors would like the plan, never imagining that it would go on to win Alberta Venture magazine's 2004 CGA-Alberta Student Business Plan Competition. "We just did it to do our assignment. We didn't realize it was going to have such success," said Allen, who graduated from DeVry in February and now works in Calgary. The concept of Breathe Inc. came from one of the members in Allen's project group who had watched a news segment about allergy sufferers. "With the weather here, there are a lot of people who have allergies," said Allen, a 2001 Hapnot Collegiate graduate. "There are suppliers who provide products for those people, but there isn't one stop where people can get them." Breathe Inc. was one of 87 business plan submissions entered in the competition. When the plan made it to the top five, Allen's group was required to present their project in front of a panel of distinguished judges. The judges liked what they saw, and Allen's group received the top prize of $2,500 plus coverage in this month's issue of Alberta Venture. Allen said the group doesn't plan to turn Breathe Inc. into a reality and would more likely sell the business plan to an interested entrepreneur. "We all have our own jobs already," said Allen, who works at the head office of Westfair Foods, which owns the Extra Foods chain of grocery stores. Allen hopes her Bachelor of Science in Business Operations from DeVry will eventually take her to an office job within Calgary's oil and gas industry. At one point, Allen hoped to become a lawyer or an accountant but was attracted to the unpredictability of the business world. "It's never the same," she said.
