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Photo of Brite founders Lukas Thackery, Martin Craig Dombrowski and Nate Wimer posing.

Brite Ideas

Brite Ideas

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The future’s looking Brite for West Virginia University alumni Lukas Thackery, Martin Craig Dombrowski and Nate Wimer.

In 2023, the trio came up with a bright, or rather, Brite idea to start a business that proactively identifies college students' needs through an app that rewards students for sharing real-time feedback.

As an MBA graduate from WVU's John Chambers College of Business and Economics, Thackery recognized that Brite needed a strategic plan that valued experimentation. 

That led him and his co-founders to Vantage Ventures.

“Vantage Ventures and its director, Dr. Ryan Angus, helped our team by making us continuously challenge our business model assumptions,” Thackery said. “Their mindset kept us nimble and adaptable, driving our growth and success.”

Since launching in 2023, Brite has expanded to five college towns, giving away over $10,000 in prizes from more than 100 local businesses. In November 2024, the company received $150,000 from Wing 2 Wing Ventures, enabling them to build their engineering team and accelerate growth.

So, what’s next for Brite?

According to Thackery, Brite aims to launch new university partnerships designed to reduce student attrition through data-driven insights by spring 2025.

Do you have an entrepreneurial idea you want to pursue? Apply today to the spring cohort of Vantage Ventures’ startup accelerator!

Written by: Emma Higgins

The Gavel Strikes 20

2023 marks the 20th year of law firm Steptoe & Johnson’s participation in the FAFE (Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination) graduate program’s Moot Court exercise. This capstone experience puts students’ skills to the test by having them investigate mock cases based on real-world financial crimes, culminating in a trial where they must testify as to their findings.  

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Leaving her own Mark

For many students, WVU feels like family. For Amaya Gray, it is family. Gray’s grandfather, Ken Gray, may have founded the long-standing program WVUp All Night (which hosts events and activities for students as an alternative to the bar scene), but Gray is leaving her own mark as a Mountaineer. She’s been part of the Career Readiness Program with our in-house Center for Career Development, served as a Peer Mentor for incoming freshmen in BCOR 191 and a Chambers College Ambassador, has been a member of the Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF) with Naomi Boyd, and founded Students of Color in Business with the help of Susan Lantz. “Students of Color in Business is geared towards business students and business minors, as well as any student who wants to be an entrepreneur or learn more about business,” Gray said. 

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Chambers' Campus Cameo

Our business students were energized by College namesake and proud West Virginia native  John Chambers, who visited campus with his wife, Elaine earlier this semester. He inspired our Entrepreneurship classes and student fellows by sharing his lessons learned from 20 years of leading Cisco Systems as CEO.

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Bank on it

The Center for Financial Literacy and Education, in conjunction with the Finance Department, received an Executive Training Program Gift for $38,000. Finance Faculty Brant Hammer, Frank DeGeorge and David Fragale will teach a 15-week program to a group of burgeoning portfolio managers from United Bank. This partnership was initiated through the 2019 Bank Summit and cultivated further due to a long-standing relationship with finance Professor Paul Speaker.

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Leidos and the Future of Business

Leidos, a Fortune 500 science and technology leader, partnered with the Chambers College in October for the ‘State of Innovation: Top Emerging Technologies Poised to be Key Drivers of a Post Pandemic World’ seminar. The event was part of the Leidos “Future of Business” series, designed to explore disciplines that are disrupting the business world, including cybersecurity, data analytics, cloud computing and the world of fintech. 

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