Embry-Riddle Students Finalists in NASA Competition

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Embry-Riddle Students Named Finalists in NASA Means Business Competition

Marketing Plan Promotes NASA’s Constellation Program

Daytona Beach, Fla., April 1, 2009 -- A marketing proposal that could boost NASA’s public image has earned seven students from Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach campus a finalist berth in the NASA Means Business Student Competition, an annual contest funded by the Coalition for Space Exploration and managed by the Texas Space Grant Consortium.

In the Fall 2008 semester, students teams from across the nation submitted preliminary ideas that NASA could use to better brand its Constellation Program, the human spaceflight system that will replace the Space Shuttle for missions to the International Space Station, Mars, and the moon. Each team also turned in a video production storyboard.

The Embry-Riddle team’s proposed marketing campaign, titled NASA: The Journey Continues, outlines how NASA could win support for the Constellation Program from average Americans and ultimately from Congress by emphasizing the many anticipated contributions the program will make, not only to space exploration but also to everyday life on Earth. The plan recommends that NASA make more efficient use of existing news media, create a more consumer-oriented website, and schedule more community outreach programs.

“The NASA Means Business Competition gives students a great opportunity to work as a team to generate and implement creative ideas to contribute to the success of NASA’s Constellation Program,” said Dr. Jorge Herrera, an Embry-Riddle business professor and the team’s advisor. “The leadership and organizational skills required to do well in the competition are of immeasurable value to their professional and academic development.”

Embry-Riddle and the other finalist teams – from Bentley University, Cal Poly, MIT, Miami International University of Art and Design, and the University of Wisconsin – all received a $750 cash award and attended a NASA Orientation Seminar at Johnson Space Center in February.

As the last step in the contest, each team will present its completed branding strategy and 30-second video public service announcement at the 11th annual NASA Customer Service Engagement Conference to be held this May at Kennedy Space Center.

The winning team will choose between a $10,000 cash award or a flight in weightlessness aboard Zero Gravity Corporation’s specially modified aircraft, G-Force One. They’ll also be invited to share their marketing suggestions with senior officials at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., in September.

The Embry-Riddle team consists of Nick Bartolotta, a freshman majoring in Aviation Business Administration; David Bodnovich, a junior majoring in Aviation Management; Eliot Bostar, a senior majoring in Aviation Business Administration; Nicole Fossum, a junior majoring in Aerospace Engineering; Maximillian Fox, a senior majoring in Aviation Business Administration; Adam Kuebler, a freshman majoring in Aviation Business Administration; and Curtis Szajkovics, a sophomore majoring in Aerospace Engineering. All of the students are members of the Embry-Riddle chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Management.

In 2007, the first year the University entered the NASA Means Business Student Competition, a team from the Daytona Beach Campus took first place. In 2008, a team from the University’s Worldwide Campus was a finalist.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering, educating more than 34,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs. Doctoral programs in aviation and in engineering physics are pending approval by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) for the University to offer programs at the doctoral level. Embry-Riddle educates students at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Worldwide Campus at more than 130 campus centers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East, and through online learning. For more information, visit www.embryriddle.edu.