Northeastern University’s Dominic Coryell Wins Top Prize at Global Student Entrepreneur Awards for Husky Express

Dominic Coryell, a senior finance/accounting major at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration, was recognized by the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) as the winner of the 2008 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards.

Coryell, CEO and equity partner of Garment Valet, formerly Husky Express, was awarded first prize for the high-tech laundry and dry cleaning services offered by Garment Valet. Coryell was also given the Innovation Award for the company’s implementation of a fully-automated process that provides high-quality, next-day delivery and pick up of garments, creating efficiencies not commonly associated with the industry.

Coryell was chosen out of a group of 26 undergraduate entrepreneurs from across the globe, including students from the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden. The 26 finalists presented their businesses to a panel of accomplished business leaders assembled by EO in Chicago on November 5 – 6, 2008. The annual competition, presented by Mercedes-Benz Financial, attracted 1,000 collegians from more than 300 universities in 11 countries this year.

As the winner, Coryell will receive more than $100,000 in cash and donated services by leading entrepreneurs including Web services, public relations, general business consulting and printing, a year’s mentoring by an EO member and a year’s tuition to the EO Accelerator Program.

“Winning this award has catapulted our company’s and leadership’s credibility to a new level where new networking opportunities exist that did not prior to the recognition.” said Coryell, who will graduate in May 2009.

Coryell started working at Husky Express his freshman year as a delivery truck driver and became an equity partner and CEO of Husky Express after only a year. His strategic vision and insight has helped shape the success of the company, whose 2008 revenues approach $850,000.

Recently, Husky Express changed its name to Garment Valet. Husky Express is the parent company and will continue to power Garment Valet and will advance the locker, software and security software into new industries.

“We decided to change the name so that our existing and potential customers can identify with the services we offer by looking at our name,” said Coryell.

Garment Valet will continue to expand its services available to customers, including laundry delivery, locker systems throughout the city for laundry drop-off and pick-up and online order tracking.

In addition, Husky Express is committing to sustainability for all of its divisions and operating arms. Beginning this month, Garment Valet will use cleantech greener cleaning processes, which reduces the amount of waste commonly associated with dry cleaning.

“Eventually, dry cleaning will disappear completely and Husky Express will process everything using water,” added Coryell.

For more information about Dominic Coryell, please visit www.garmentvalet.com or contact Jenny Eriksen at (617) 373-2802 or via email at j.eriksen@neu.edu.

About Garment Valet

GARMENT VALET®, powered by Husky Express, is a laundry and dry cleaning delivery service that caters to residents of multi-unit housing facilities in Boston by placing a digital locker system, a virtual concierge of sorts, in common areas for all the residents to share. It is similar to a vending machine, but engineered specifically for wash-dry-fold and dry-cleaning. If there is no space for a locker, the company also has the ability to offer unattended delivery by obtaining a key. In-person or office delivery is always available as well. The convenience this machine offers is three fold; it eliminates the need to carry garments to the dry cleaners, it saves time for those who want an alternative to self-service wash-dry-fold, and it eliminates the hassle of in-person delivery and the time constraints involved by securing typical unattended delivery.