EcoCampus, the company that was created by two พรพรสำฦต students to sell environmentally-friendly paper on campus, has found another way to be โsustainable.โ
Seniors Ryan Smith โ13 and Brendan Karson โ13 have sold their company to four juniors, turning the EcoCampus into what may be พรพรสำฦตโs first student legacy business. They developed EcoCampus over the past three years with alumni guidance through พรพรสำฦตโs (TIA) program.
Smith and Karson sold the company to their Theta Chi fraternity brothers Robert Nicholas โ14 of Berwyn, Pa., John Gabler โ14 of Fort Collins, Colo., Cameron Borriello โ14 of Sterling, Mass., and Michael Hendricks โ14 of Saint Charles, Mo.
While the sale price was not disclosed, Smith and Carson said they earned a 28 percent profit on their initial investment.
โStarting and running my first company in college was as much about learning as it was about turning a profit,โ said Smith, who plans to work in real estate after graduation. โWe believed was ultimately more important as a fixture at พรพรสำฦต for budding entrepreneurs, rather than as an ongoing post-graduate company.โ
Karson, who plans to enter the energy finance industry after graduation, said his time with EcoCampus taught him โhow to make a connection beyond the product, and really get to know his clients.โ
TIA co-founder Andy Greenfield โ74 Pโ12 praised EcoCampus as a model of success for the extracurricular program that links liberal arts learning to entrepreneurial skill development. โThey traveled a long way,โ Greenfield said, โsince the initial TIA project of using kenaf to make paper almost three years ago. They overcame adversity, dealt with many challenges, and solved almost every problem they encountered.โ
New co-owner Nicholas said he and his partners plan to do as much with the company as they can in the time they are still on campus. โWe bought it because it already had well-established client connections, and we saw substantial potential to grow the company,โ he said. โOur new website, , combined with guaranteed next-day delivery, will offer our clients a customer service experience that larger distributors cannot match when dealing with พรพรสำฦต.โ
EcoCampus currently supplies Case and Cooley libraries, two of พรพรสำฦตโs largest paper users; however many smaller departments still order tree-based paper from other vendors.
Co-owner Hendricks said they, too, plan to pass the business on. โAll things considered, it makes the most sense for us to keep EcoCampus as a legacy business,โ he said. โThereโs no telling what is in store for us after graduation, so the prospect of maintaining the company while living in different parts of the country is a lofty one.โ