The University of Vermont (UVM) earned third place overall at this year’s ENGCOMM—the Engineering and Commerce Case Competition at Concordia University in Montreal last week. ENGCOMM is the only student-led multidisciplinary case competition in the world at the intersection between engineering and business.   

Teams from the Netherlands, Canada, the U.S. and other countries compete to develop the best solution to a real-world problem within a limited time. Six hours of preparation in the first two rounds and then 12 hours for the third and final case are allotted. Students present their proposed solutions to a panel of judges that includes industry executives and subject matter experts, and are judged on sustainability, the creativity and novelty of their business and engineering solutions and the quality of their presentation. 

UVM was among only four of 12 teams that earned accolades. UVM competed in the qualifying round against Concordia University, and McMaster University. The team’s high score earned them a spot in the finals against University of Manitoba (1st place), University of Alberta (2nd place), UVM (3rd), and University of Ottawa. 

The UVM team—named the VK Group—included Liam Concannon, accounting and business analytics (global business), and James Stephens, finance and business analytics (sustainable business) from the Grossman School of Business (GSB), and Morgan Boothe and Olivia Szumski, both civil engineering majors within the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS). GSB’s Marie-France Nelson, lecturer, and GSB alum Connor McCormack ’22 took over the coaching of the team. 

“A big congrats to Morgan, Liam, James, and Olivia for making UVM proud! Their dedication and hard work paid off and it was a pleasure working with this team,” said Nelson. 

“ENGCOMM is very unique because of its cross-disciplinary approach, as it combines engineering and business, and it’s a very prestigious competition as many university teams have to win regional competitions before attending,” added McCormack. “The UVM team worked on cases that were immensely complex, ranging from wildfire prevention and detection in remote Canadian regions to the removal of space debris from Earth's orbit. They came up with brilliant ideas for each case while also delivering captivating presentations.”