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Ideas bear fruit at Berry
by Bryant Steele
Berry College freshman Samantha Brilling (left) and sophomore Lisa Smith with some of the products from their business venture, the Online Berry Alumni Collection at Oak Hill. Alumni gear is currently available in the alumni office in the Ford Buildings on Berry College's main campus and will soon be available online through Oak Hill's Web site. (Photo by Lindy Dugger Cordell / RN-T)
The whiteboard in Rufus Massey’s office at Berry College (map) is a color-coded mass of lists and boxes with lines and arrows connecting one thing to another or more. It is what Picasso might have come up with had he been a business major.
Massey’s masterpiece is an evolving study in a new student work experience called Enterprise Development.
“We want to build a high-performance team, and we want the students to be more competitive in the workforce when they leave,” Massey, assistant vice president for enterprise development, said.
He said the program shares ideas with the entrepreneurship program at the college’s Campbell School of Business, but the businesses this program builds will stay at Berry after students graduate, always to be run by students with oversight from faculty and staff called co-managers.
“It gives students the opportunity to run their own enterprise,” Massey said. “The students had to develop the project plans.”
The idea, to market Berry’s products and services beyond the Berry family, had its genesis in October. The progress will be evaluated during the summer (summer students are keeping the pilot projects going), and Massey hopes to have more projects up and running by fall.
Most projects have a readily recognizable Berry theme, like the Berry Farms Jersey Milk Co. and Berry Farms Jersey Beef Co. Then there’s Vision Studios, a video production company to visually preserve not only anniversary and birthday celebrations but also property owners’ belongings for insurance purposes.
“For the last six months, we’ve gathered ideas. We have 200 ideas on the business concept list,” Massey said.
Berry Farms Genetic Services can take advantage of the school’s Jersey cattle herd, ranked No. 13 in the nation, he said. “Genetic Services basically would have a veterinarian work with students and harvest embryos and ship them frozen anywhere in the world. The goal is to have Berry Cattle walking all over the world. It’s all about continuing the Berry line.”
The Cottages at Berry – four log cabins — are “not really open to the public,” Massey said. “But with 21,000 alumni, there are plenty of customers.” The cottages are being converted to a student-run enterprise with the goal “to keep them full all the time,” Massey said.
The Berry Bike Shop is an old blacksmith shop that will partner with local bicycle shops and provide minor repairs, tours and rentals, he said.
Berry Farms Jersey Milk “has taken the campus by storm,” Massey said. It’s processed by Cagle Dairy in Canton and offered in whole, 2 percent and chocolate. Details about offering it to the public at large are being worked out.
“What we have in mind” with the Berry Organic Garden “is that the average meal takes 1,500 miles to get to the table. Wouldn’t we rather have food that takes a quarter-mile to get to the table?”
‘Sky’s the limit’
“We are actually selling product now,” said Nathan Clackum, co-manager of Berry Angus Beef Co. “So far we’ve been mainly marketing to faculty, staff, students and alumni. However, we will sell it to the public.
(See Berryangus@berry.edu for sales information.)
“Berry Angus specializes in high-quality ground beef and steaks. Our product is natural, which means that there are no artificial preservatives or artificial ingredients added to the meat. It’s also raised without added hormones.”
The product is seasonal (January through July) and is processed by Sheriff’s Meat Processing in Calhoun, a state -inspected plant, Clackum said.
The school has been marketing animals in larger portions for several years, but the enterprise selling individual cuts just started in May, he said.
Massey would one day like people to see menu items from Berry College Student Enterprises. “It’s not far-fetched. It’s pretty simple to do that.”
“Basically, the sky’s the limit,” Clackum said. “We’re going to grow based on demand. We have the animal numbers right now to do about 40 head per year.”
Jessica Crumbley, general manager of the enterprise and a rising senior, asked to be a part of the pilot project. She thought it would be helpful because she plans to be a veterinarian but doesn’t have a business minor.
“It gets me thinking about all aspects of running a business,” she said. “Raising steers, getting them prepped, the paperwork. It helps me see more than just the health care.
Alumni have bought Berry merchandise for years, but The Alumni Collection at Oak Hill enterprise plans to sell even more caps, shirts, motto plaques, calendars and more.
Operations manager and rising junior Lisa Smith and marketing manager and rising sophomore Samantha Brilling will survey alumni at the upcoming Alumni Weekend for additional merchandise ideas as they also plan to take the business online.
Brilling, a marketing major, thinks the enterprise will help prepare her for her career. Smith said she does it more for the students. “I came from the business world back to school,” she said.
The Berry Enterprises Student Team is a support group majoring in areas like business management, accounting and finance, marketing and communication, Massey said. The group will meet at least once a semester to discuss what’s been accomplished and seek advice from a volunteer board that includes trustees, Campbell School faculty and the Alumni Council.
David Reeves, a rising senior and visual communications manager, is on the
BEST team and is Web designer for the entire project.
“Most purchases will be made online eventually,” he said. “The Web is now the new Yellow Pages that everyone can go to for reference.”
“Our home page will be about how we’ve come about, who we are, have contact information and a link to all the enterprises.” It will include information about how the project helps further education, he said.
‘Premier work institution’
The program has levels of work. Freshmen start at level one and have the opportunity to reach level five and run entire programs.
“The ultimate vision is student-run enterprises,” Massey said. “Academics are still first, but work is a unique component.
“Berry’s vision is to be known as a premier work institution in the nation,” Massey said. “By the time students graduate, up to 95 percent have worked on campus. It’s the culture.”
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