Technology Management MBA Student Mike Costales Wins Big with AgroFilms

Mike Costales was just settling into a Technology Management MBA class when he learned that his team, AgroFilms, had won the $15,000 grand prize at the 2024 Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge.

“It was shocking to be sitting in class and finding out that my team won,” said Costales, a student in the Technology Management MBA (TMMBA) program at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

Costales had spent all day with his teammates pitching AgroFilms’s biodegradable mulch film at the competition, which gives students the opportunity to come up with meaningful solutions to big problems the world faces related to climate and the environment. With the judges just minutes away from announcing the winners, Costales realized it was time to leave if he was going to make it to his evening MBA class.

“With all of the great ideas, including competition from teams that have been honing and showcasing their products in multiple innovation challenges, we didn’t think we stood a chance until our name was finally called,” Costales said.

AgroFilms took home the top prize for its product that would reduce overall plastic consumption by replacing the plastic film used in commercial farming with a hemp-based product that can be tilled back into the soil.

Applying Technology Management MBA learnings to environmental problems

Costales first heard about AgroFilms’s product at the Environmental Innovation Practicum that is offered fall quarter at the University of Washington to help students prepare for the competition. Intrigued by their product, Costales reached out and offered his business experience to the team of Bioresource Science and Engineering students.

AgroFilms invited him to join in February, and Costales immediately put to work the skills he had been learning in the Foster Technology Management MBA program. He utilized resources including the Foster Business Library to help guide his market research, then later wrote the AgroFilms pitch and helped create the business summary.

“I’ve had the opportunity to see how my background and experience can help a business whose main driver isn’t just how to make money, but also how to improve the environment or innovate for health,” Costales said.

This year, 22 teams of undergraduate and graduate students from across the Pacific Northwest participated in the Environmental Innovation Challenge, which was created 16 years ago at the Foster School of Business Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.

“This has been a great way to meet other students outside of the business school,” Costales said about participating in the challenge. “It’s helpful to see where we fit in an industry that is completely outside of what we’re learning in the Technology Management MBA program.”

Harnessing a Technology Management MBA to become a better people manager

Pursuing an MBA was never part of Costales’s plan. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1999 with a Bachelor’s in Psychology, then landed in tech after taking additional training in systems engineering and computer management. Costales is now the Platform Solutions Manager at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where he has worked since 2002.

“I never considered going back to school,” Costales said. “I just never thought it was in the cards.”

But like many people, he began to re-evaluate his life during the COVID-19 lockdown. “During COVID, a lot of people felt like the world was moving them around,” Costales said. “I wanted to take control of my own life.”

He began considering his options and learned from an alumnus about the Technology Management MBA, one of the Foster School of Business’s four MBA programs for working professionals. Of the four, the Technology Management MBA is the fastest path to a degree with an accelerated 18-month program focused on technology management.

“This will not only make me a better people manager,” Costales said, “but I’m also learning skills to help guide my small group as we move into a future with so many new technologies.”

In his second quarter of the program, he was already leveraging knowledge gained in the classroom to implement more effective strategies and discuss big-picture business decisions with leadership. “It all came together last summer,” Costales said. “Everything I’d learned fell into place in one conversation.

“I started the program because I wanted to be a better people manager. But it’s really helped me understand how the business is run and the kinds of questions I need to be asking to make the right decisions for the company.”

Balancing an MBA with work and family

Students in Foster’s Technology Management MBA spend an average of 20 to 25 hours a week in class or working on classwork, which includes time for team projects as well as individual learning. But with his family’s full support, Costales was confident he could juggle this workload with his full-time job and family duties.

“My wife has just been so encouraging for me to go to this program,” he said. “When I brought it up, there was absolutely no wavering in her voice about whether I should do this.”

With a 4- and 7-year-old at home, Costales says he prioritizes spending time with his family as much as possible. “My family has sacrificed a lot for me to be here, so when it’s my turn to be with the kids, I don’t let work or school get in the way,” he said.

But some opportunities simply can’t be missed, which was how Costales found himself in Japan just one week before competing in the Environmental Innovation Challenge.

An MBA Elective that “Should be Treated as Mandatory”

Each spring, the graduating cohort of Technology Management MBA students has the option to join an International Study Tour. Although it’s an elective, the alumnus who encouraged Costales to apply for the Technology Management MBA also told him that the Study Tour “should be treated as mandatory.”

Not only did participants visit nine global companies and soak in a distinctly different culture, but they also solidified the lifetime bonds that are part of what makes the Technology Management MBA network so robust.

“We got to see first-hand the differences that we’d learned about doing business in different cultures,” Costales said. “Being able to experience how Japan’s culture is engrained in their business practices is not something I would have learned as just a normal tourist.”

With the Environmental Innovation Challenge just days away, Costales also made time during the trip to check in regularly with AgroFilms despite the 16-hour time difference.

“If you want to make something happen, the work doesn’t stop just because you’re somewhere else,” Costales says. “Being half a world away isn’t going to stop us from putting effort into making it successful.”

Learn more about the Foster MBA student experience here. Visit the Foster School of Business Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship’s to learn more about the Environmental Innovation Challenge.