Pet-care concept wins award.

Business plan gains recognition in province wide competition

Three Thunder Bay high school students remain undecided about pursuing careers in business, but the trio has an award-winning business idea to fall back on if they ever change their minds.

Bev Sim, Jill Mertson and Kathy Mitton, now OAC students at Hammarskjold High School, earned second place in a provincial business competition last fall for their business plan for a full-service pet-care facility.

The Ontario Business Educator's Association (OBEA) student awards ceremonies and banquet took place in Toronto this past September. The event recognized high school students from across the province for their achievements in various areas of business education at the secondary school level.

The idea to develop a business plan for a pet-care facility came from Mertson, who is "crazy about animals," according to her teammates Sim and Mitton. The exercise was an assignment given to the students last spring by their teacher, Virginia Stead.

"They (the students) had to come up with an original business plan," Stead says. "Each plan had to be in a different industry so that the students were competing against one another."

While most students were looking at creating business plans for restaurants and business directed at youth, Mertson, Sim and Mitton took a different approach, one they say is geared toward better overall pet education and care.

"We were trying to incorporate the positive aspects" of existing pet-care facilities in the city, Mertson says. "Our goal was more than making money; it was avoiding pet abuse."

With Mertson's love for animals as a basis, the three began to construct an "elaborate" business plan that called into play the techniques and principles learned in past business classes.

The students' pet-care facility idea centred around a kennel/grooming service facility that also offered in-home pet care for working people who would need someone to stop by and walk, feed, or play with their pets during the day.

The business, Buddy's, also offered services to seniors or people who were recovering from an injury who needed someone to walk their pets.

Additionally, the business allowed for "group day-care sessions," where pets could be socialized by being kennelled together. "It depended on (the client's) needs," Mitton says. "You could add on to anything; everything was flexible."

The three students agree researching, organizing the business and deciding what could realistically be done to stay profitable were among the hardest things to tackle.

The business plan, along with other plans from the same class, were entered in a series of four competitions, including a city-wide contest sponsored by Development Thunder Bay.

The city department, along with Thunder Bay Travel, paid to send the three students to Toronto to receive their OBEA award. Stead says four business plans took the top four spots at the regional competition level, but this is the first time a northwestern Ontario school has taken home one of the top prizes at the provincial level.