The Delivering Duo

Every student filtering through the College housing office at the start of fall term this year was handed two "essentials": a dorm key and a mysteriously heavy, liter-sized plastic cup. One costs the price of a term's rent, the other is free.

Inside the free cup, Ryan FitzSimons '96 and Craig Creelman '94 have packed more than 20 goodies to get students started for the year; a message board, deodorant (the cups are gender specific), fruit punch, granola bars, and coupons for ice cream, film, and other local treats. The list goes on.

Granted, Creelman and FitzSimons are generous alumni, but this isn't just Big Green spirit. It's their job.

The Hanover duo are co-entrepreneurs of The College Kit, a national direct-marketing business that puts sample products right where companies want them: students' dorm rooms. This year, the two boast, they delivered 500,000 kits to students at 150 schools.

In their three years of business, Creelman and FitzSimons have gone from scraping for lunch money to handling multi-million-dollar, full-service marketing accounts. Their newest score is spearheading a two-month promotional tour for Dentyne® Ice chewing gum, complete with a decorated tour bus, a yellow Hum-V, and 10 million samples of gum. Says FitzSimons, who found the right person to float such an idea, "It's amazing how life changes with a single phone call."

Mugshot: Creel mart, left, and FitzSimons.