Congratulations to this year’s OtterBox Entrepreneurial Scholarship Recipients!

We are proud to partner with OtterBox to select this year’s OtterBox Entrepreneurial Scholarship recipients! This scholarship, established in 2007, was created to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in local students, inspiring and equipping the next generation of entrepreneurs with the skills they need to pursue new ideas, develop new businesses and create new jobs. Over 50 scholarship applications were received from incredibly smart and talented students attending high schools in the Poudre School District. OtterBox employees volunteered to review each application, narrowing the pool down to a handful of applicants who were then interviewed by our scholarship selection committee.

After much thought and deliberation, three young men were selected for their obvious passion and enthusiasm for entrepreneurship as well as their outstanding academic achievements. All three were enrolled in AP classes, all were involved in either DECA or FBLA, and all three were active outside of school – either through sports, volunteering, coaching younger students, or working.

• Zachary Norris (pictured right): Zach graduated from Fossil Ridge High School and is planning to study Business Administration at CSU next fall. What really struck the scholarship reviewers about Zach is his drive. Here is an excerpt from Zach’s application: “My need to prove to myself that I can succeed and my duty to society to provide jobs for others has motivated me like nothing else could.” Zach is driven to provide jobs for others while providing an income for himself. He plans to own a real estate business, a networking business, and a few other businesses that at this point are to be kept proprietary between his partner and Zach.  To Quote Zach: “I believe strongly that as one person, I will be able to impact the world greatly by passing on my own kindness to others.”
• Trevor Webb (pictured left): Trevor graduated from Rocky Mountain High School and is planning to study Business Administration/Marketing at CSU next fall where he was accepted into the CSU Honors Program. Trevor’s first foray into entrepreneurship was with a tee-shirt company he started where he designs, prints and sells t-shirts on a website he built. He plans to continue to grow and hone his entrepreneurial skills, as well as support his college education, by starting a crepe cart business with a friend. He hopes to turn the crepe cart into a full food truck! What impressed the review team about Trevor was his passion to be successful. To quote Trevor – “I love the idea of being my own boss. I will get to choose my schedule, what kind of business I start, who I work with and just so much of my life will be up to me. The other thing I love about being an entrepreneur is my success will be up to me and determined by what I do. If I can make the right moves and put in the right work, the rewards could be endless … or I could fail miserably. It is all up to me.”
• Tanner Orth (not pictured): Tanner graduated from Fort Collins High School and is planning to initially enroll at Front Range Community College, eventually transferring to CSU to study Business Marketing and Real Estate. Tanner started his entrepreneur journey at age 8, with his own ice business – Tanner’s Ice. To make this business successful, Tanner had to go door-to-door to drum up business and then delivered the ice using a cooler and his red wagon. At age 14 he started a lawn mowing business. He soon realized that he didn’t have time to complete all of the work by himself, so he hired some of his friends to meet the demand. The reviewers were specifically impressed with Tanner’s commitment to hard work and persistence. To quote Tanner – “Hard work has never scared me and I understand my chosen line of work will be challenging, humbling and take a lot of energy to be successful. My belief is that you get out of life what you are willing to put into it, so I am looking forward to putting all I can into both school and my future career.”

All of us at the OtterCares Foundation and OtterBox congratulate this year’s scholarship recipients! We can’t wait to see how these young men live out their dreams and make the world a better place!