Tag: University of Vermont

The Colorado potato beetle is notorious for its role in starting the pesticide industry—and for its ability to resist the insecticides developed to stop it.

Now a team of scientists has—for the first time—sequenced and explored the whole genome of this major agricultural pest. What they found in its DNA was “very surprising,” says Yolanda Chen, a scientist at the University of Vermont who co-led the new study with University of Wisconsin–Madison entomologist Sean Schoville.

The team expected to find clear genetic evidence of the beetle’s amazing adaptability to insecticides. Instead, the study revealed that the genes of the Colorado potato beetle involved in insecticide resistance are similar to other species of beetles.

“There’s a more complicated story in the evolution of this beetle than just gene sequences,” says Chen, an entomologist in UVM’s Department of Plant and Soil Science. She and her colleagues from 32 other institutes and universities reported their findings in the January 31 issue of Scientific Reports.

New questions

Chen and co-author Kristian Brevik, a UVM graduate student in Chen’s lab, think that epigenetic switches—changes to genes from the environment or other factors outside of the DNA—may be crucially important to understanding how the Colorado potato beetle rapidly evolves resistance to numerous types of insecticides.

They and the rest of the team on the study believe that their new data will help shed light on how this insect jumps to new plant hosts and handles toxins, and it will help researchers explore more ways to control the beetle. “What this genome will do is enable us to ask all sorts of new questions around insects,” says Chen, “why they’re pests and how they’ve evolved—and that’s why we’re excited about it.”

Devastating pest

The Colorado potato beetle’s rapid spread, hardiness, and recognizable tiger-like stripes have caught global attention since it began infesting potatoes in the 1800s, spreading east from Nebraska after the Civil War. “Within something like twenty years it made it through the East Coast. It was topping trains. It was forcing people to give up their beach vacations. It was devastating crops,” Chen explains. “Since then, you can’t grow potatoes, on the East Coast especially, without using pesticides.” The beetle was investigated as a potential agricultural weapon by Germany in the 1940s and its post-war spread into the Soviet bloc stoked an anti-American propaganda campaign to pin the invasion on outsiders. More benignly, it has featured on many countries’ stamps and is used in classrooms to educate about insect lifecycles.

Rapid evolution

But it’s the beetle’s ability to rapidly develop resistance to insecticides and to spread to climates previously thought inhospitable that has fascinated and frustrated entomologists for decades. Managing the Colorado beetle costs tens of millions of dollars every year. The alternative is the billions of dollars in damage if left unchecked.

“All that effort of trying to develop new insecticides is just blown out of the water by a pest like this that can just very quickly overcome it,” says Wisconsin’s Schoville. “That poses a challenge for potato growers and for the agricultural entomologists trying to manage it. And it’s just fascinating from an evolutionary perspective.”

Within the beetle’s genome, the team found a diverse and large array of genes used for digesting plant proteins, helping the beetle thrive on its hosts. The beetle also had an expanded number of genes for sensing bitter tastes, likely because of their preference for the bitter nightshade family of plants, of which potatoes are a member.

Other pathways

In the new study, UVM’s Chen and Brevik focused on understanding “transposable elements” within the beetle’s genome. These are parts of the DNA that can jump around, changing position within the genome. These transposable parts of the Colorado potato beetle, which make up 17 percent of the beetle’s genome, are evolving rapidly compared to other beetle families, the new research reports. But when it came to the pest’s infamous ability to overcome insecticides, the researchers were surprised to find that the Colorado potato beetle’s genome looked much like those of its less-hardy cousins. The team did not find new resistance-related genes to explain the insect’s tenaciousness.

“This is what’s interesting—it wasn’t by diversifying their genome, adding new genes, that would explain rapid pesticide evolution,” says Schoville. “It leaves us with a whole bunch of new questions to pursue how that works.”

The new genome does provide a clue to the beetle’s known sensitivity to an alternative control system, known as RNAi, that can be used to gum up its cellular machinery and act as a kind of insecticide. The Colorado potato beetle has an expanded RNAi processing pathway, meaning it could be particularly amenable to experimental RNAi control methods.

Chen and Schoville are now sequencing another 100 genomes of the Colorado potato beetle and its close relatives to continue investigating the hardiness and adaptability that have captured so many people’s attention for the past 150 years. “It’s evolved faster than most other species,” says Chen, “It’s even invading into the Arctic Circle.”

Source: UVM News

At its February meeting, UVM’s Board of Trustees gave the green light to campus leaders to continue planning and design for an ambitious Larner College of Medicine-Department of Psychological Sciences joint building project, got an upbeat report on UVM’s $500 million capital campaign and received a positive update on a recent initiative to assess student learning.

The Larner College of Medicine-Psychological Sciences proposal, which the board first learned of at its October 2017 meeting, includes a complete renovation of the Given Building and the construction of an integrated new research facility. Under the plan, the Psychological Sciences Department would move from its current location in Dewey Hall, which is in significant need of renovation.

Since the October meeting, much progress has been made, said Rick Morin, dean of the medical college, who led the presentation. Arts and Sciences dean Bill Falls, Bob Vaughan, director of capital planning, and Tom Gustafson, vice president for university relations and administration, also provided board members with information and answered questions.

In November, more than 40 design professional visited campus, Morin said. The university received 11 proposals in December. In January, architectural firms were interviewed and a winner was selected, Payette-Black River Design.

Schematic design for the project has begun. The work will be far enough long that the team expects to be able to present a budget to the board at its October 2018 meeting.

n addition to upgrading the university’s research capabilities, Morin said,the project will eliminate $41 million in deferred maintenance on Dewey and Given, increase the facilities reimbursement in our federal research grants and reduce Given’s cooling and heating loads by 50 percent.

UVM Foundation CEO Shane Jacobson shared the positive news with trustees that UVM’s capital campaign is a year ahead of schedule and should surpass its goal of $500 million midyear. The Foundation will then go into “stretch” mode, Jacobson said, in an attempt to surpass its initial goal by focusing on donor investments in yet-unfunded campaign initiatives. The campaign will conclude on June 30, 2019.

Jacobson laid out the four categories of the campaign with the funds they had attracted as of late January: $73 million for student scholarships and financial aid; $59 million for endowed chairs and professorships; $59 million for facilities support; and $277 million of investment in academic program support.

Trustees also heard good news from Brian Reed, associate provost for teaching and learning, on the progress of the university’s efforts to assess student learning outcomes in UVM’s four general education focus areas:  Foundational Writing and Information Literacy, Diversity, Sustainability and Quantitative Reasoning.

Reed explained the four Gen Ed requirements are in different stages of implementing direct and indirect assessments of student learning outcomes.  Indirect assessments include methods such as student focus groups and interviews of faculty, while direct assessments directly measure student performance. 

Reed spent much of his presentation describing the assessment of Foundational Writing and Information Literacy (FWIL) because it is the first general education requirement to have completed a large scale direct assessment of student learning outcomes.  This work has been conducted under the leadership of Libby Miles, director of the FWIL program, with support from Jennifer Dickinson, Provost’s Faculty Fellow for Assessment and Alex Yin, director of institutional research. 

In 2016-17, FWIL’s assessment focus was on its information literacy outcome. The methods included student focus groups, faculty interviews and measures of student performance as rated by faculty using a scoring rubric. Twenty-two faculty rated 241 student writing samples from FWIL courses. Overall, the results indicated that students were achieving the desired outcomes.

The results also indicated some specific areas for change and improvement. For example, students who scored less than 2.5 were found to have difficulty with transitions in their writing and with developing their ideas. These are teachable skills, Reed said, and show how a well designed direct assessment can inform pedagogical and curricular revision.         

The other Gen Ed  requirements are making good progress in assessing their learning outcomes, Reed said. All of them are implementing indirect assessments, and the Diversity requirement is about to launch a direct assessment modeled after the FWIL program’s.  Sustainability and Quantitative Reasoning will be following close behind.           

In other board news:

Education Policy and Institutional Resources Committee

• New degrees in the following areas were approved by the EPIR committee: a new Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences in conjunction with the Graduate College; a new Master of Science in Engineering Management in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences in conjunction with the Graduate College; a new Ph.D. in Complex Systems and Data Science in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences in conjunction with the Graduate College; a new major and minor in Health and Society in the College of Arts and Sciences; a new Master of Professional Studies (MPS) degree; a request by the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources in conjunction with the Graduate College to change the existing Leadership for Sustainability Concentration in the Master of Science in Natural Resources to a separate Master of Professional Studies in Leadership for Sustainability; a new undergraduate certificate in Integrative Healthcare and a new Continuing and Distance Education certificate in Integrative Healthcare in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences and Continuing and Distance Education.

Business, Finance and Investment Committee

• UVM Foundation CEO Shane Jacobson updated committee members on the fundraising progress related to capital projects. More than $8 million of the $11 million-non-debt goal and total project cost of Ifshin Hall has been committed as of December 31, 2017.  Jacobson shared that the pipeline continues to show promise to reach the goal. In regard to the STEM facility, which will be funded by a mix of private gifts and non-debt funding, Jacobson said that the Foundation had commitments and receipts totaling $10.5 million, and that the donor pipeline has a stretch capacity remaining in the $7-8 million range.
• $1.5 million in cash receipts and pledges that have been received by the UVM Foundation to support the project will be used by project managers to complete the design development phase and initial permit applications. In addition, the university will seek an additional $2 million from the Board in May, contingent on the Foundation being able to raise the equivalent amount, to complete the construction documents.
• Committee members also authorized funding for the $3 million Billings Building Envelope Restoration Project and the $2.9 million Torrey Building Envelope Restoration Project. Funds for both project will be drawn from unrestricted deferred maintenance funds that currently exist in the Physical Plant budget.
• Committee members were updated on the status of the UVM endowment, which had a stronger than expected finish to the year thanks to a surging FY 2017 stock market. As of December 31, the endowment stood at $528 million, excluding the value of donated real estate.

Source: UVM News

The University of Vermont Board of Trustees has added two new members with expertise in entrepreneurship and technology. The board also added a new student trustee. 

Jodi Goldstein, executive director of the Harvard Innovation Labs, and Otto Berkes, executive vice president and chief technology officer at New York City-based CA Technologies, will serve six-year terms beginning March 1.

They succeed outgoing board members Lisa Ventriss and Richard Gamelli, who will complete their terms of service at the end of February 2018. Current trustee Robert Brennan was re-appointed for a second six-year term. 

Sidney Hilker is the new student trustee. She will serve a two-year term beginning March 1, succeeding Soraiya Thura, who will complete a two-year term at the end of February 2018.

Goldstein received a B.S. degree in international business from UVM and an MBA from Harvard. As the Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Executive Director of the Harvard Innovation Labs, Goldstein oversees a cross disciplinary ecosystem that supports innovation and entrepreneurial activities across Harvard.

Goldstein has been a key member of the i-lab management team since its launch in 2011, conceiving and delivering high-quality programming and resources in a range of interest areas. In 2014, she spearheaded the Launch Lab, an incubator for Harvard alumni, and in 2016 she opened the Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab to support life sciences ventures.

Goldstein has more than 25 years of experience as a start-up executive, co-founder and investor. She has spent her career driving innovation in multiple capacities across a range of industries.  She has been on the management team of several venture backed start-ups including iMarket and Planetall, Send.com, Hoteluxury.com and Mobicious. She co-founded Drync, a mobile app that allows consumers to research and purchase wine. She began her career at GE as a member of the company’s corporate audit staff, the internal consulting arm of GE, and was an investor at TA Associates, a venture capital firm. 

Recently she has been featured in Fast Company, the Boston Globe  and the New York Times and is a regular contributor to Fortune as part of its Entrepreneur Insider network.

Goldstein lives in the Boston area.

Berkes is currently executive vice president and chief technology officer at CA Technologies. In addition to leading CA’s technology strategy and advanced research, he is responsible for incubation of next-generation products.

Berkes received a B.A. degree in physics from Middlebury College in 1985 and an M.S. in computer science and electrical engineering from the University of Vermont in 1989.

Following engineering roles at Vermont Microsystems and Autodesk, Berkes joined Microsoft in 1993 as a senior software developer to work on the graphics system for the first version of Windows NT; he subsequently led the Windows OpenGL and DirectX development groups during their formative years.  Berkes was one of the four original Xbox founders and its first engineering architect.  An early champion of mobile computing, he led the development of hardware and software technologies focused on mobile devices and is co-inventor on ten patents. 

After 18 years at Microsoft, Berkes joined HBO to drive the company’s digital transition. As EVP and CTO, he was responsible for the development of HBO GO, media production, internal business systems and technology operations.  

Berkes served on the board of the Northwest School in Seattle from June 2009 to 2011.  He has been a board member at CEWIT at Stony Brook University since March 2016, and a member of the University of Vermont Foundation and STEM Leadership Councils since June 2014.

Berkes lives in New York.

Hilker is a member of the class of 2021 in UVM’s Larner College of Medicine. Born in Burlington, Vermont, she received her B.A. in 2014 from Harvard University.

She is a member of the College of Medicine Student Education Group and is a student ambassador. While at Harvard, Hilker worked in a psychiatric genetics lab, volunteered with Advocating Success for Kids (ASK) at Children’s Hospital Boston and rowed on the varsity crew team.

She has worked as a health policy intern for the Children’s Defense Fund and as a consulting fellow with New Sector Alliance. Prior to enrolling at UVM, she worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company in Boston, Massachusetts.

The new trustees will officially attend their first regular full board meeting May 18 and 19.

Source: UVM News

Perhaps you missed the news that the price of hummus has spiked in Great Britain. The cause, as the New York Times reported on February 8: drought in India, resulting in a poor harvest of chickpeas. Far beyond making dips for pita bread, chickpeas are a legume of life-and-death importance—especially in India, Pakistan, and Ethiopia where 1 in 5 of the world’s people depend on them as their primary source of protein.

As global climate change continues, scientists expect more droughts, heat stress and insect pests—creating need for new varieties of agricultural plants with diverse qualities that will let them cope and adapt to quickly changing conditions. Where could those novel traits come from?

“The wild relatives of crop plants are the most promising reserves of genetic diversity,” say Eric Bishop von Wettberg, a plant biologist at the University of Vermont. He led a new research effort that took a deep look at the ecology and genetics of chickpea plants. The scientists discovered an extreme lack of genetic diversity and other threats to the future adaptability of domestic chickpeas. But they also collected wild relatives of chickpeas in southeastern Turkey that hold “great promise,” von Wettberg says, as a source of new genes for traits like drought-resistance, resistance to pod-boring beetles, and heat tolerance.

The team’s results were published February 13 in the journal Nature Communications.

Hunting the wild chickpea

Along with wheat, barley, peas, and other important crops, chickpea—Cicer arietinum—was probably domesticated in Mesopotamia, within the “Fertile Crescent,” about 10,000 years ago. Its closest wild relative, Cicer reticulatum, is now only found in a few provinces of southeastern Anatolia in modern-day Turkey. In 2013, von Wettberg, and colleagues from Turkey and other countries, spent two months surveying parts of Turkey and Kurdistan, near the border of Syria, searching for the two wild plant species most closely related to domestic chickpeas. “The way we found a lot of these populations was by driving around and asking shepherds on the side of the road, ‘yabani nohut?’ which means ‘wild chickpea,” von Wettberg says, “then they would take us out in the fields and show us the plants.”

At 21 sites, they collected seeds from 371 plants and collected DNA from 839. With this material and other research, they were able to decipher the history of the wild populations of chickpea relatives, estimate how the environment has impacted the genetics of chickpeas, and make links between the wild plants and the domestic ones. They discovered an extreme genetic bottleneck during the plant’s domestication history and report that more than 93% of the genetic variation in the wild plants is missing from modern chickpea breeding programs. This lack of diversity threatens the potential of commercial chickpea stock as the conditions in which farmers attempt to grow it—hotter, with a changing palette of pests, diseases, and weather patterns—become less and less like the conditions in which it was originally domesticated.

Controlling genes

“Despite their potential value in meeting the challenges of modern agriculture, few systematic, range-wide collections of wild relatives exist for any crop species,” the team of scientists write, “and even the available wild genetic resources are widely under-utilized for crop improvement.” As part of the new study, the scientists explored a large part of the geographic range of the two chickpea relatives, “from the bottom of the mountains to the top,” von Wettberg say—seeking to capture the diversity that differing micro-habitats, soil types, and elevations had created in various strains of the species. Then they did extensive crossbreeding of these wild plants with domestic ones. The resulting backcrossed plants and information about their genomes, “shows a way forward for improving chickpeas and many other crops too,” says von Wettberg, a professor in UVM’s Department of Plant and Soil Science.

Only in recent years have advances in genomics—and understanding how genetics play out in whole organisms—made it realistic for crop breeders to be able to identify traits in wild plants and selectively breed them into domestic stock. In wild chickpea relatives, von Wettberg and the team discovered many useful traits, including “striking resistance to insect pests,” he says. But these will only be useful, he notes, if they can be bred into plants without causing them to lose key qualities that farmers need, like growing upright instead of along the ground and seed hulls that don’t shatter during harvest. “We’re now in an age where we can pretty easily figure out what genes control those differences,” von Wettberg says, keeping the qualities that mechanized farming requires, “while adding in resistance to drought, disease, and pests.”

The genetic material the scientists extracted, and the seeds they collected, greatly expand the global stock of chickpea relatives available to science—and will now be part of international seed and germplasm banks that researchers and breeders can use indefinitely.  But, the scientists note, there is an urgent need to collect and conserve the wild relatives of many crops. “They are threatened by habitat fragmentation and loss of native landscapes,” von Wettberg says. “Where we were collecting plants in 2013 is now a war zone.”

Source: UVM News

Enter the Fleming Museum gallery for “Self-Confessed: The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel,” and the first work you encounter is a self-portrait of the artist as sifter of cat litter. The cat looks intently upon the business at hand; the artist looks out at the viewer; the dialogue bubble offers a flat “What.”

Honest, unpretentious, and, of course, funny, welcome to the world of Alison Bechdel, an artistry built upon “the minute observation and recording of her own life,” as the exhibition’s curators note.

Introductions may not be necessary, particularly in the artist’s adopted home state, where she is the current Vermont Cartoonist Laureate, not to mention folk hero. But if you need an Alison Bechdel primer, here goes. She built her career upon “Dykes to Watch Out For,” a comic strip that ran from 1983 to 2008. Her graphic memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” vaulted her to another level with a New York Times bestseller that served as the basis for a Tony-award winning musical. The recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, Bechdel teaches at UVM through the Marsh-Professor-at-Large program.

Fleming curator Andrea Rosen and Margaret Tamulonis, collection and exhibition coordinator, worked with Bechdel on selecting works for the show, which is on display through the end of the semester. Bechdel’s Marsh Professorship provided the initial spark that got Fleming director Janie Cohen talking to the artist about a possible show. Last fall’s Pulp Culture Comic Arts Festival & Symposium included Bechdel as one of the three keynote speakers, making for a rich year celebrating the genre at UVM.

Tamulonis and Rosen assembled on the show with an awareness that comic strips and graphic memoirs on the wall had the potential for a text-heavy experience and built-in variety. They were fortunate to have an artist, in Bechdel, who was both generous with her time and willing to let them dig into a deep, intimate archive dating back to her childhood. Touring the exhibition, Rosen points out a case with very early work from Bechdel’s childhood and teenage years. There’s a small book with a cover of faded, water-stained construction paper. The title is handwritten in bubbly, Robert Crumb-like lettering: “AN ODD, STRANGE AND CURIOUS COLLECTION OF ALISON BECHDEL’S WORKS.” Rosen notes that the Bechdel voice we know now was already emerging then.

“Self-Confessed” arranges Bechdel’s work in several distinct spaces—“Dykes”; “Fun Home,” the graphic memoir; her 2012 book “Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama”; and “Fun Home,” the Broadway musical. The latter includes a small treasure, the original set design for “Fun Home,” reconstructed for the Fleming exhibition by theatrical designer David Zinn. Midway through, a couple of chairs, a couch, and a coffee table stacked with copies of Bechdel’s books offers a chance to sit down and read the work in its original format, between two covers.

Not long before the show opened in late January, Rosen and Tamulonis walked through the galleries with Bechdel. The artist felt like it still needed something, a shift in scale and perspective. Days later, she returned with a brush and black paint and set to work on several wall paintings — the original “Dyke to Watch Out For,” angry, naked, coffee-pot-in-hand; Bechdel’s “Dykes” alter-ego Mo looking stressed; an “uncowed cow” for Vermont Pride Day; and that opening/closing painting, in which Alison Bechdel, cleaner of cat litter, has the first and last word. What.

Wednesday, Feb. 21, is the first of several talks and other events related to “Self-Confessed.” Alison Bechdel will deliver an artist’s talk at 7 p.m. in the Silver Maple Ballroom, Davis Center. On March 28, Valerie Rohy, UVM professor of English, will deliver a talk, “Alison Bechdel’s Vermont: A Queer Regionalism,” at noon, Fleming Museum. On April 4, Bechdel will join with past Vermont Cartoonist Laureates James Kochalka and Edward Koren for a panel discussion, at 6 p.m., Fleming Museum. 

Source: UVM News

It has been a whirlwind few weeks since Chas Smith G’15 and his cousin Nikita Salmon, co-owners of maple beverage company SAP!, appeared on ABC’s venture capital/entrepreneur pitch program “Shark Tank” on Jan. 28. Smith, a graduate of the Grossman School of Business’ Sustainable Innovation MBA program, took a break at a local café to talk about his Hollywood experience and answer a few key questions, mainly: is the “Shark Tank” effect real, and does he regret turning down $600,000?

Is the so-called “Shark Tank” effect real?

It’s definitely real. Our online sales right now are insane. We hit over $100,000 in new online sales within 10 days of the show. It has generated a lot interest and gotten people to try it who wondered, “What the hell is this?” They only let us know ten days before it was going to air, so we rushed to rebuild our entire website to make it e-commerce friendly. We had tens of thousands of hits during the show and we were really worried the website was going to crash. Fortunately, we came through the spike well and were able to process a huge amount of orders.

Another upside is that we are learning a lot about consumer behavior and how people make purchasing decisions online. The show re-airs in July, so we’re preparing for another spike.

How did you manage to get on the show?

They actually sent us a message. We thought it was a joke at first because they wrote into our website and it looked like spam, but then they called us up and we said, “Wow, this is real.” Typically, there’s a long application process, and they have casting calls all over the country. I think someone on the show liked our product because an assistant called us and said, “We want you in LA in three weeks.”

It was sort of risky, because did we really want to take the chance of being roasted on national TV? We are a small company and know what we need to improve on. Ultimately, as we thought about it more, we said, “how many opportunities do you get to talk to four million people about your brand?” All press is good press as far as we are concerned. 

Speaking of being roasted, what did you think of some of the jokes and harsher comments the judges dished out?

It may have looked harsh a times, but they do that to everybody. You are not going to come out of there unscathed, this is reality TV! It is supposed to be sensationalist. 

They joked about us looking like stereotypical Vermonters. One of them said, “you guys look like you are straight out of central casting. Are you sure you aren’t from LA?”

The most infuriating moment actually was when Mark Cuban said, “Oh, this tastes like Aunt Jemima.” Our products taste nothing like that; he was trying to create an association with something and he clearly just didn’t grasp what real maple is. For the Vermont maple community, there is nothing more offensive than saying that, right?

But you take the good with the bad, and this has been a hugely positive experience for us and our company.

It seemed like a quick pretty decision to reject the $600,000 offer and 30 percent stake in SAP! from judge Robert Herjavec. Did you have a pre-set number that you weren’t willing to go below?

Well, that negotiation happened over about 20 minutes. The producers just have to cut it down for the episode. We were actually in the “Tank” for about 90 minutes overall. We came in with the mentality that if the deal is not perfect, we were not going to do it. We’re fortunate to be in a position where we didn’t need a deal. Sure, we could have used the money, but we have a core set of investors who are really supportive and there’s a lot of new interest in the business since we’ve been on the market.

Overall, though, it sounds like the positives of being on the show outweighed the negatives?

People have asked if we thought it helped us or hurt us by going on the show. The answer is that this has been resoundingly positive for us when you look at how many people are now interested in our business and how our sales have spiked. I think being from Vermont you are more grounded in reality. We were like, “yup, our marketing does need some work, and we know that, and we’re figuring it out.”

It’s this really unique moment in time where all of these people from across the country are trying our product for the first time, so we’re developing a new e-commerce strategy behind it. A one-time sale is great, but it’s not the basis of a company. We have the opportunity to cultivate a huge amount of new customers and we intend to do just that.  

How did you and Nikita come up with the idea for SAP!?

His side of the family has a deep history in the maple syrup industry. We’re both 28, but come from very different parts of Vermont. I’m from Burlington and he grew up on a farm in Enosburg. He started his own businesses right away and is smart in so many ways that I’m not. He has a very practical mindset and can just solve problems and get things done where I have more of an analytical mindset, so I think that’s why we make such a good team. We’ve been making these types of drinks in our family for a long time. We were experimenting with it for a few years and then got more serious when I came back to Vermont for the SIMBA program, which is really where all of the pieces came together.

Did your SIMBA experience help you with SAP!?

I learned a lot of the necessary skills in SIMBA, but what really attracted me to the program was its focus on how to create a virtuous business model. If our product can ascend and be really successful, it could be a second outlet for maple sap in the State of Vermont, which could help stabilize maple prices and create prosperity throughout the rural Vermont economy. Secondarily, if birch sap takes off it could be a whole new industry in Vermont where you are making birch trees productive instead of cutting them down. The social aspect of providing healthier products for people to consume is important to us. It’s really about how to create business models that create mutual value. 

If you could do the show again, would you do anything differently?

If we could rewind, I would just simplify our pitch more. I think we tried to over explain the products a bit and it got confusing for the Sharks. When you are in the Tank, it gets chaotic very quickly with questions flying in from the Sharks non-stop. You have such a short window of time to control the narrative and get your main points across.

But ultimately, the Shark Tank experience has really forced us to be better in a lot of ways. We had to sit down and say, “OK, this really confirmed some things we already thought and this is the direction we really want to take it.” What didn’t get aired in the episode, but was part of the discussion in the Tank, was a lot of the positive reactions on where we want to take the company in the future with new products.  We are fortunate to be off to a great start with our company, and are excited to take the next steps with our business in 2018.

Source: UVM News