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HANCOCK - Four Michigan Technological University students are running a business before they even graduate.

The three business students and one electrical engineering student run Tech Initiatives Inc., a Hancock-based company that is trying to bring a patented product known as the CPRMattress to markets. The mattress can harden to increase CPR efficiency, said Larry Mark, a Tech business student and Tech Initiatives director of design and logistics.

Most hospital mattresses are made from foam, which absorbs CPR compressions and makes the process only 41 percent efficient, Mark said. When a CPR board is placed under a patient, the efficiency increases to 53 percent, he said.

Mark said the mattress can save time and help the CPR administrator better gauge the depth of their compressions.

"The CPR mattress and the technology will instantly increase the efficiency up to 81 percent in 10 seconds and it eliminates the need for the CPR board and eliminates the need to stop the CPR to place the board under the patient," he said.

The students have shown the mattress to staff at area hospitals and went on a road trip in August to hospitals and companies downstate and in Indiana. The feedback from doctors and nurses has been positive, Larry said.

"They can tell the difference and they're very excited to see the technology get into a hospital," he said.

Biomedical engineering students created the mattress after Portage Health approached the University about researching a cause for more adequate CPR in hospitals, Mark said. Eventually, the project was taken over by a team of students with different majors put together to bring a product to market, Larry's father, Bob Mark said. Bob is one of the advisors for the project, the Director of Tech's Center for Technology, Innovation, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship and a professor in the School of Business and Economics. The technology behind the product is now patented, Bob said.

Bob said the original group of students has now graduated and been replaced by the current team made up of Larry, Eric Kinonen, Laurilee Kroll and Trevor Paull.

"They're all here for another two years so hopefully they'll have it far enough along that they'll stick around and keep running this business," Bob said.

The students are exploring two paths on what to do next with the mattress, Larry said. One path involves entering a licensing agreement with a company that sells medical equipment. Currently, the team is in discussions with Stryker and and Hill-Rom, he said.

"The company will have the rights to manufacture and use our technology and then we would in turn receive royalties from their profits that they make," he said.

The second option would be to redesign the product so it meets safety standards set by Underwriter Laboratories. That work would either be done by getting more students involved, or by outsourcing the work to another company.

"The mattress was never designed around these regulatory standards, and if it's not designed around them, it won't pass any other tests because their standards are so strict for patient safety," Larry said.

Although the second option would require more time and money, it could be more profitable in the long run, Larry said. The students could then decide to enter a licensing agreement with an medical equipment company or attempt to manufacture and sell the mattresses on their own.

Larry said all options are being explored simultaneously.

"If we try to sit here on it it trying to get a licensing agree and it never happens, we want to have a back up system in place," he said.

Regardless of which option the students choose, if a profit is ever made, all the students that have worked on the mattress to date will receive money.

"Everything is built in, even the students that did the original research would get some money, nobody gets left out," Bob said. "The students keep building more stock as they put time in."

Larry said the company has received grant money from the National Science Foundation that paid the students for half of their summer work and their work during the fall semester up to 20 hours a week. However, the students often put in more hours than that. Larry said he spends 35 to 45 hours working on the project a week in addition to attending class full time. He said time management was key to his success.

"I pretty much don't watch TV ever," he said.

For more information about the CPRMattress, visit www.cprmattress.com or call 483-2676.

Layla Aslani can be reached at laslani@mininggazette.com