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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Jon Karl of iovation and Ryan Kirkpatrick of Galvanic Design kick off the Austin Entrepreneurship Program's Building Your Killer Business Plan lecture series, which starts Tuesday, Oct. 12 at 6 p.m.

It will be held in Weatherford Hall, room EG01.

The Building Your Killer Business Plan series is designed to help budding entrepreneurs take an innovative idea and craft a business plan to develop it.

Kirkpatrick and Karl are both alumni of Oregon State University, with multiple businesses and entrepreneurial experiences under their belts. Business plans have been used to varying degrees in each business they've worked with, and results can be seen in both the success and failures experienced in each of those enterprises.

Karl has co-founded two companies, ieLogic and iovation. As vice president of business development for Portland-based fraud detection company iovation, he has an active role in defining the company's business strategy, technology partnerships and the development of iovation's fraud management services to meet market demand on a global scale.

Over the past several years, Karl has aided start-ups with investments in SplashCast Media, Platial, RNA Networks, Values of N, Environmentally Neutral Design, Expert Insight, and BugleMe.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from OSU.

Kirkpatrick graduated from OSU in 2006 and has already started two companies. While at OSU, Kirkpatrick connected with Dan Whitaker, a serial entrepreneur who has led over a dozen start ups including Rogue Wave Software. One of Kirkpatrick's notable startups is Galvanic Design, creator of the Campus Rail Jam Tour, a unique promotional tour that travels to 12 different college campuses around the western U.S. and puts on snowboarding exhibitions in the middle of college campuses.

Both entrepreneurs will provide insight into why you should care about creating the killer business plan, and how the lecture series can help you achieve your goals as an entrepreneur, regardless of the type of business you're starting.

All events in the Building Your Killer Business Plan Series are free and open to the community. Building Your Killer Business Plan Series leads up to The Enterprise Challenge, a business plan competition that will be held April 22, 2011.

The rest of the series will address key aspects of building a business plan. The talks will be held at 6 p.m. in Kelley Engineering, room 1003 for 2010, and the location is yet to be determined for January 2011. Talks include:

Oct. 19: Norm Galvin, ORM Consulting, sales

Nov. 2: Keven Malkewitz, faculty at OSU College of Business, marketing

Nov. 9: Christopher Klemm, director of Austin Entrepreneurship Program, competition

Nov. 16: Bill Witt, Witt Consulting, cash flow and profit/loss statements

Nov. 23: Nick Fowler, Orion Ventures, sources and uses of capital

Jan. 4: Ray Jenski, intellectual property attorney, intellectual property

Jan. 11: Jeanne Smith, Jeanne Smith & Associates, company structure and management team

Jan. 18: Members of former Enterprise Challenge finalist teams, what it takes to win