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By MATT WICKENHEISER, Staff Writer Friday, April 20, 2007

A. Silver finished her run, headed into the locker room and pulled off her shirt, when a "cute little 20-something" saw the bra she was wearing and laughed.

The bra, said Silver, was an older model that is no longer made. And it wasn't as attractive as the sports bras that are standard for female athletes these days. But it was more comfortable than the off-the-shelf models and it provided good support -- issues for large-chested women.

The incident spurred Silver to action.

"She laughed at me," Silver said. "Being so vain, I went, 'That's it.' "

So she set out to create a sports bra for well-endowed athletes about two years ago.

Her effort got a boost recently when she won the University of Southern Maine's Student Business Plan Competition, besting 30 other teams with her concept.

Silver Performance Gear won $10,000, plus $15,000 in consulting services to forward the business.

Silver is a graduate student in the Muskie School of Public Service's Public Health Management department, and also is taking MBA classes, with plans to enter that USM program as well.

She and USM marketing student Alireza Khojastehzad teamed up to enter the competition.

One of the factors that set Silver's plan apart from those of the other finalists was the extensive collaboration she's already had concerning her concept.

She's a tenant in the Maine Center for Enterprise Development, a business incubator at USM, where she has access to shared office services and the expertise and feedback from business professionals and fellow entrepreneurs.

She's worked with both the school's athletic department and the School of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology to explore product testing, feedback and development.

"I think that really impressed the judges," said Valarie Lamont, director of USM's Center for Entrepreneurship, the competition's sponsor. "This particular idea was well on its way and was being vetted in a number of different ways."

That leveraging of research and development resources at USM was important, said John Ferland, president of the Center for Enterprise Development, as was the clear pathway to commercialization that Silver's plan identified.

Now her challenges are the same ones facing other entrepreneurs with a product idea, Ferland said.

"That is to stay focused on getting it to market, and between now and then, breaking down her tasks into methodical, do-able milestones that achieve progression toward that product introduction," Ferland said.

Silver stressed that her success so far has come from the opportunities a small state like Maine presents to entrepreneurs, where there are more than 151,000 small firms, according to the Small Business Administration.

"Everything is one hand helping the other in the state of Maine. I can get to anyone in the state, they're open, accessible," Silver said. "It's really an opportunity to bring all these forward, to use the best of Maine to push this endeavor forward."

And that endeavor is a product aimed at a niche market, Lamont noted. Silver said she might capture 20 percent of the market of well-endowed female athletes. And although she has competition from the likes of Nike and other large companies, Silver believes her product will be different enough to penetrate the market.

Most sports bras rely on compression technology. Silver explained that to contain the breasts and keep them from moving during a sports activity, the bras compress them onto the chest wall.

"The larger you are, the more you have to compress back to the chest wall," she said.

Bigger-chested women need bigger bras, and with more coverage, there's more of a cut-in effect -- the seamed edges of the bra dig into the flesh.

Silver wouldn't reveal too much about her idea, for which she's pursuing a design patent. But she did say that her concept uses encapsulation, meaning the bra would incorporate a separate container for each breast.

She plans to use nontraditional hardware and fabrics (including nanotechnology-enhanced materials) to make the bras stronger and more comfortable.

One part she needs is no longer in production. She's been working with New England Castings in Hiram to develop a production model.

The bra will be tested at USM's ASET center, which is set up to put various products through repeated tests. She's developed an "all-around" bra as a baseline for all sports.

Silver now plans to work with USM's athletic department to get her bras to various women in different sports. She wants to make specific bras for specific sports, and will use feedback from the athletes to design those models.

A woman's body moves differently when playing basketball or hockey, or when she's jogging, Silver said.

"I think it's really interesting, and I give her a lot of credit for what she's doing," said Al Bean, USM athletics director. "What she wants is a test ground for some real athletes. It would be voluntary; I'm happy we can be part of it."

Bean said he's heard the stories from his sports trainers over the years: Women who were well-endowed always complained about the pain and irritation, and asked about products that could help with support.

"I think performance clothing is something all athletes are interested in," he said.

Silver said she has learned through her market research that the average bra size has grown over the past 15 years from 34B to 36C, due to diet, hormones and implants. There's an increased demand for sports bras that work well with big-chested women, Silver said, which she considers to be anything with cup-size C or larger.

With the obesity epidemic in the United States, products that help segments of the population exercise are, in a way, helping save lives, she said.

Silver learned she won the business competition at a USM Corporate Partners breakfast last week. Silver and the other four finalists gave five-minute presentations on their plans -- which meant she spoke to a crowd of businesspeople about sports bras, compression, movement and encapsulation.

Her PowerPoint presentation included slides of bras and strait jackets.

Several people have asked her how she manages to speak with such frankness about a potentially delicate topic. Ultimately, she focuses on the good that her product could do.

"It's a problem," she said. "Women are out there suffering."

Staff Writer Matt Wickenheiser can be contacted at 791-6316 or at: