MBA Student Profiles

MBA PROFILES

Sheila Powenski Orchard Park, NY Two-Year Notre Dame MBA Program Class of 2009

MBA student Sheila Powenski has a knack for solving problems. As an undergraduate student, she became aware of children in the Honduras playing sports without any equipment at all—no balls, bats, or gloves. So along with a fellow teammate from her lacrosse team, Sheila raised money and collected used sports equipment for the children. After paying for passage of a large suitcase filled with deflated balls and other sports equipment, Sheila flew to the Honduras and delivered the paraphernalia to two orphanages and many excited kids.

Last year, as a first-year Notre Dame MBA student, Sheila along with five fellow team members saw a need in the healthcare industry and eventually won $10,000 in the Notre Dame Business Plan Competition for their solution. Their strategy involved selling unused hospital medical supplies to countries that are not served by non-profits but can still use help. In other words, they have some money to spend, but they could expand their budgets and help more people if they could buy supplies at a discounted rate. Sheila says, "In putting together the business plan, the faculty was such a help. We'd pull the professors aside for advice and take notes feverishly in class because we knew we needed the information for our business the next day."

A Tough Nut to Crack

This past summer, interning for Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Sheila was again tasked with a difficult problem: to block a patent that would have prevented the Gladiator Brand of Whirlpool from launching a sports equipment organizational product. While looking at the equipment, she recognized something many others had missed—the organizational structure in question had long been in use in the sporting goods departments of some major department store chains. To successfully block the patent, however, Sheila would have to find artwork dated prior to the date of the competitor's pending patent.

After visiting four stores, Sheila finally found the information she needed and contacted the manufacturer's engineering manager, explaining the problem and enlisting his aid in her quest. Whirlpool's legal department then determined that the engineering drawings were indeed prior art and the product launch could move forward as scheduled.

Stepping Stones

After graduation, Sheila will be working for Whirlpool in a full-time capacity as well as continuing to build a business with her teammates from the Notre Dame Business Plan Competition. The group recently signed on two medical facilities that will donate unused medical supplies for sale abroad, and the members are continuing to explore other methods for expansion.

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