For many nearing the end of their scholastic career, the senior project is a moment to shine, a chance to show just what that Cal Poly education was really worth.
It is also an opportunity to establish a business, something that Cal Poly business graduate Jessica Gibbons, 23, did with Hungry Student Catering.
Since May 2008, the company has provided catering service to small businesses, meetings and parties in San Luis Obispo, using a varied menu from local restaurants.
“We have partnered with about 10 restaurants and we plan to increase that to 30 soon,” Gibbons said. “We provide the set-up, clean-up for events and anything additional that a full service catering job might need.”
“She just contacts me when she has a luncheon or a dinner and I put together the quote and we set up a date for pick-up,” said Joanne Currie, owner of Splash Café in San Luis Obispo.
Gibbons frequently uses Splash Café because of their diverse menu but she also cultivates relationships with restaurants specializing in different cuisines, including Italian and Mexican.
“We do a lot of work with Entrée Express which does a similar kind of thing, but we don’t have our own service,” Currie said.
A former “starving student,” Gibbons started the company with the intention of providing well-wpaying jobs to students. She tries to keep the balance between staff size and expansion and presently employs a staff of 10 at $12 an hour.
“One of my goals was just to provide some high paying jobs. I know what it’s like to work minimum wage and it’s hard to find flexible jobs,” Gibbons said. “I knew what I looked for as a student and to provide that I try to limit growth so that all the employees have work.”
She will resume hiring again soon, thanks to an increasing volume of calls since the company’s first job serving at local professional group’s weekly meeting.
The expansion follows the business plan that Gibbons developed at Cal Poly with the help of an advanced marketing class and her senior project advisor, marketing professor Lynn Metcalf.
“We worked really closely all three quarters to hash out the details and get the company up and running,” Gibbons said. “We did press releases, got the Web site finalized, market research and fine tuning for documents like my employee handbook.”
Last winter, Gibbons took advantage of the skills brought by a team of Cal Poly students who used Hungry Students Catering as a client for their upper-division marketing class
“They were very helpful in figuring out the dynamics of how this business model would operate on the ground and they really helped it be successful,” she said.
Since establishing the company, Gibbons has continued to work at the local marketing firm Whiz-Bang Advertising, which also helped her to establish a Web presence.
“It’s a little overwhelming if I think about everything I’m doing all at once,” she said. “My bosses are great though, they’ve helped me so much. I feel that I’m very prepared with going to Cal Poly and being here in SLO for five years. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”
Gibbons credits much of her success to the help she’s received by having the right connections in the community.
“She’s certainly very pleasant to work with and I think she has a great business concept. It just works out real well and I think it’s going to be very successful for her,” Currie said.