CASSOPOLIS — First place in the Venture Quest 2011 Business Plan Competition was awarded to Horse Play of Buchanan and St. Joseph Tuesday night at the Edward Lowe Foundation.

Finalists competed for more than $8,000 in prizes.

Four finalists presented business plans, allowing potential investors to learn and engage with these new ventures.

• Paradise Coast, a retro recreational vehicle manufacturer, third.

• 8094 Media, an Internet television production company that focuses on local markets, second.

• Clear Water Harbor Broadcasting Co., a wholesome Internet radio station that aims to bring southwest Michigan to the world.

Venture Quest 2011 targeted aspiring entrepreneurs and existing companies to submit business plans competing for cash prizes awarded to the top three entrants.

The goal from the beginning of the competition has been to foster the entrepreneurial spirit and to cultivate new businesses in the three-county region of Cass, Van Buren and Berrien counties.

Horse Play, established in 2009 with low overhead, is owned by Kristine Proctor and Anne Carpenter, bringing backgrounds in social work and psychology to corporate training and personal development with horses in an outdoor setting.

“It’s a fun approach to team-building,” Proctor said. “We ask people to turn off their cell phones and leave all their technology that connects us, and yet disconnects us, in their car or at their office.

“We use horses in our process. Horses are herd animals and very good at tuning into their environment. We utilize the horses in their natural state, so they don’t have to have any special kind of training. There’s no horseback riding. Individuals come as a group and do activities in groups of two or three or four, depending on the size of the group. We might say your goal as a team is to get one of those horses over the jump without riding it.”

What’s most important is team members’ interaction with each other.

“This type of team-building is extremely powerful and effective,” Proctor said. “One, because it’s fun. Two, because you’re actually in an experience with an opportunity to put your ideas into practice, as opposed to saying, ‘The next time we interact, we’ll try them.’

“Not only do you have an opportunity to see if what you’re doing is working or not, but you also have an opportunity to create new patterns with something right in front of you that is a concrete example of sarcasm that your co-workers experience. Horses respond to energy people have. You have the opportunity then to see what’s happening and facilitators can talk about what the horses are doing and what the team is doing, but removed enough for people to see patterns of communication, lack of communication, lack of trust or lack of commitment to the overall team goal. You’re able to see it in a different way because you’re in an actual experience.”

Horse Play offers a process which takes a day and a half.

“Our goal is for people to be out in nature,” she added, “and to utilize that as a way of looking at how they can work more effectively as a team.”

In Buchanan, they lease a retreat center with an outdoor arena.

The location in St. Joseph has an indoor arena. They are backed up by a team of five, including equine specialists.

Their business plan calls for targeting potential customers with revenues exceeding $1 million.

In the first phase, they identified 8,217 such businesses within 1 1/2 hours.

Phase two, they would expand beyond that.

Carpenter said equine-assisted learning “has been around about 15 years” and has been proven effective internationally.

There are competitors as close by as Holland and Grand Rapids.

“With 30 years in the mental health field,” Carpenter said, “I always say if I can help an angry adolescent get along with their family, I can help corporations get along better.”

Horse Play relies on a national figure, Patrick Lencioni, for its teamwork model.

“Right now, marketing is not our strong suit,” Carpenter said. “Our plan is also to develop social media and collaborate with local tourism venues, such as wineries and golf courses.”

A fellow presenter suggested they book booths at area county fairs.

Ultimately, they want their own facility with pastures where horses can live “freely.”