In the News
PRIME TIME: Talley, a Hajim School graduate and entrepreneur, made a successful pitch for his company U-Laces to celebrity
investors on the ABC television reality series Shark Tank. (Photo: ABC)Entrepreneur Tim Talley ’88 has reeled in a prominent venture capitalist. Appearing on the ABC television series Shark Tank, in which entrepreneurs present their business plans to celebrity investors, Talley pitched his product, customized shoelaces called U-Laces. One of the sharks, billionaire Mark Cuban, bit.
A graduate of the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Talley has been producing and selling his colorful, self-styled laces since 2009. He auditioned for Shark Tank in spring 2013, and beat the roughly 1-in-200 odds to win a spot on the show.
Cuban’s agreement to invest $200,000 in return for a stake in U-Laces offers Talley the opportunity to tap into a major target market: basketball fans. As owner of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks, Cuban offered to sell U-Laces in Mavericks team shops.
Chances are those U-Laces will be blue, black, gray, and white. But U-Laces are available in all kinds of colors and designed to encourage endless combinations.
Talley shared some lessons from his entrepreneurial journey in a public talk at the Center for Entrepreneurship in April.
MILITARY STAR: Schanely received her brigadier general star pin in a promotion ceremony that included her husband, Steve.
(Photo: U.S. Army)A U.S. Military First
Miyako Newell Schanely ’95S (MBA) is making military history with her promotion to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserves. She’s the first Japanese-American woman and the first female engineer to reach the rank, and the second-ranking Japanese-American woman in the entire U.S. military, following Air Force Major General Susan Mashiko.
A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Schanely served in Germany and Panama before becoming part of the Army Reserves. She’s the deputy commander of the 412th Theater Engineer Command in Vicksburg, Miss., and as a civilian, serves as executive director of the State University of New York North Country Consortium, a collaboration to bring undergraduate and graduate programs to Fort Drum and northern New York.
Schanely is the granddaughter of Japanese immigrants. Her mother, father, and stepfather served in the U.S. military.
Guiding the MoMA
ART ADVICE: English, a graduate of the program in visual and cultural studies, has been hired by the Museum of Modern Art
as a consulting curator. (Photo: Museum of Modern Art)Darby English ’02 (PhD) has been named a consulting curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A leading scholar of American and European art with a specialization in work by black artists, he joins MoMA to help the museum in its strategic goal to strengthen its collections of work by black artists. A graduate of Rochester’s program in visual and cultural studies, English began his career teaching modern and contemporary art and cultural studies at the University of Chicago. In 2013, he became director of research and academic program at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass. He’ll maintain that role.
