Tim Harty, The Business Times

Having been mentored early in his working career by some prominent Grand Junction business and community leaders – Max Krey, Pat Gormley and Herb Bacon among them – Dave Huerkamp believes successful businesses should give back to the community that helped them succeed.

By no means does Huerkamp, owner and president of ProSpace Interiors, 634 Main St. in Grand Junction, consider himself in the company of the aforementioned hallowed trio. He acknowledged, “We’re a relatively small company.” But, he added, “I really believe in giving back and supporting the community.”

With that mindset, he finds places and causes in the Grand Valley to make donations. And, like Krey, Gormley and Bacon were, Huerkamp is a benefactor of Colorado Mesa University. He provides scholarships in the nursing program, the Davis School of Business and the athletics programs, estimating 10 students currently have scholarships funded by ProSpace Interiors, which sells, installs and repairs office furniture and designs office spaces.

Huerkamp is a fan of CMU athletics, and he recently provided his financial support in a new way: ProSpace Interiors paid Colorado Mesa University women’s basketball player Olivia Reed Thyne via a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal to be in a ProSpace Interiors television commercial.

CMU Compliance Director Taya Baumgartner said it is the first NIL deal in which a Colorado Mesa athlete has been paid to do a TV commercial. Other CMU athletes have gotten NIL money, but usually in small amounts – $10 here, $20 there – through Opendorse, a company that specializes in NIL deals for student-athletes and partnered with CMU in February 2024.

Soon after the TV commercial with Reed Thyne began airing, Huerkamp got the feedback he hoped to hear, and it had nothing to do with ProSpace Interiors making money.

Of course, the reason for advertising is to ultimately make money, but Huerkamp had a more altruistic reason as well: Getting other businesses to see what CMU has to offer and in turn support the university, especially the athletic programs.

“I have already talked to at least a dozen other business owners that because of the deal that we did with Olivia, they’re interested in doing that, whether it’s women’s basketball or the football team or baseball or wrestling,” Huerkamp said. “I think it’s already opened up some of those doors. I’m pretty sure one of Olivia’s teammates is going to be getting something similar from another local business here in town, just because of what we did with Olivia.”

Many NCAA Division II athletes receive athletic scholarships, but at many universities, including Colorado Mesa, those tend to be partial scholarships. Huerkamp thinks Grand Junction businesses can help CMU athletes and their respective programs remain competitive in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, where some schools are able to do more for their athletes.

“One of the reasons that I wanted to get a little bit of publicity related to this NIL deal was not only to let other business owners know or think about supporting student athletes, but the bigger thing is just being involved in athletic fundraising,” Huerkamp said. 

“Some of the other teams that Olivia and her teammates compete against all the time, those programs are fully funded, so they’re able to give out large scholarships to the entire team. CMU is still in the process of getting fully funded. I think they’re just barely over 50 percent.

“So, the bottom line is most of these student athletes, even if they are a scholarship student athlete at CMU, they’re not getting a 100 percent, full-ride scholarship. … This is really a way to support those student athletes, because they have to work so hard in school to keep up their grades and in athletics, to help them get through four years of school.”

Huerkamp said what he’s really hoping for, big picture, is business owners will help support CMU’s student athletes and athletic programs.

He thinks the support for the university will come back to those businesses that open their pocketbooks.

“Seriously,” Huerkamp said, “I got a call from a local business that was planning to get stuff from another company, and they called ProSpace, because they saw Olivia (in the TV commercial). They thought it was so awesome that we were doing a deal like this with a local student athlete, and they picked up the phone and called us instead of calling someone else.

“So, there is a very definitive, positive, business and marketing portion of this. It’s not just, ‘Oh, I like CMU, and I like women’s basketball.’ It’s a relationship, like the NIL deals were intended to work. And it’s kind of like (Division II) in general, it’s really the essence of college athletics, right? These kids do go to school, they do study.”

HEY, THIS IS REALLY EASY!

ProSpace Interiors owner and President Dave Huerkamp was surprised when he learned his business was the first to pay a Colorado Mesa University student athlete to be in a TV commercial.

Name, Image and Likeness deals have been around for several years, but Colorado Mesa is an NCAA Division II program for athletics, and where NIL really gets used – and big-dollar deals get done – is at the Division I level in the higher-profile sports.

Huerkamp hopes his distinction of being first with a TV-commercial NIL deal for a CMU athlete, All-American women’s basketball player Olivia Reed Thyne, serves as the first domino to fall. He thinks it will.

After the TV commercial aired, he said, “I’ve had a couple of people say, ‘Hey, that’s really awesome. How does that work?’ and, ‘Can I do that?’ Like, yeah, you can. I mean, it’s really easy.”

Actually, he added, “It’s amazingly easy. That’s the thing I was surprised about.

“Now, I did do quite a bit of research going into it as far as the NCAA rules and all that sort of stuff, because the last thing I wanted to do was create an issue for Olivia and her eligibility. But, yeah, there’s just a few little minor guidelines. Other than that, any business can connect with any student athlete or team that they want to help support and really work out any deal that’s agreeable to both parties. So, it’s pretty awesome.”

COMPLIANCE IS IMPORTANT

Helping make NIL deals easy, and compliant, is Colorado Mesa’s partnership with Opendorse, which markets itself as: “The best NIL deal marketplace for athletes to build and monetize their name, image, and likeness value.”

On its website, opendorse.com, Opendorse says under the heading of What We Do: “Opendorse is the leading athlete marketplace and NIL technology company, providing technology and services to the athlete endorsement industry. We serve the full lifecycle of supporting athletes: educating, assessing, planning, sharing, creating, measuring, tracking, disclosing, regulating, listing, browsing, booking, and more.

“Our industry-leading NIL solutions help athletes connect with advertisers, colleges, collectives, and supporters to understand, build, and monetize their brand value.”

The reason a partnership is necessary with Opendorse is because CMU can’t facilitate any deals for its student-athletes. That’s illegal.

“If the athlete is interested in an NIL deal, they have to put the work in to get those,” CMU Compliance Director Taya Baumgartner said. “We can’t say, ‘Oh, hey, we have this deal for you,’ and then set it up that way.”

Or a business can start the NIL talks.

“It’s a pretty simple process for the businesses’ side,” Baumgartner said. “They can either contact that athlete and propose a deal, or they can go on that marketplace that’s on the Internet for Opendorse and propose a deal through that to the athlete.

“But then from there, once they propose the deal, Opendorse just makes sure that they’re not breaking any rules.”