Paul Robinette and Ryanne Dolan are co-winners of the 2008 University of
Missouri Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Robinette is a senior in
computer engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Dolan is
a former Missouri S&T student who is now pursuing a Ph.D. at the University
of Missouri-Columbia.         

Robinette and Dolan formed a software services and consulting company, Rolla
Engineered Solutions, with help from the Center for Entrepreneurship and
Outreach while both were at Missouri
S&T.          

“We saw the opportunity to develop custom solutions to meet the needs of
small and medium sized businesses in Mid-Missouri, and we decided to act,” says
Robinette, a native of Maryland Heights, Mo., who is also pursuing an
undergraduate degree in physics at Missouri
S&T.         

Among the services Rolla Engineered Solutions has provided to businesses
since 2006 are installing a Microsoft Exchange Network Server, creating code
for lean manufacturing and migrating a code that calculates spacecraft
trajectories.         

Rolla Engineered Solutions, a part-time venture, is currently under contract
for work exceeding $14,000 in
2008.         

As co-winners of the 2008 University of Missouri Student Entrepreneur of the
Year Award, Robinette and Dolan will share $2,500 and receive recognition
during a UM Board of Curators
dinner.         

Like Dolan, Robinette plans to pursue a Ph.D. But the two partners plan to
keep Rolla Engineered Solutions going, and might make it a full-time job at
some point in the
future.         

“When we originally formed our company, we weren’t sure it would survive
past the end of the semester,” Dolan says. “However, the company has thrived
and expanded, even though I graduated and moved to Mizzou.”