Newtown Square resident Colleen McCloskey, a student at Delaware County Community College, recently won another prestigious competition for her company, Elite Pureed Meals, which provides people with swallowing difficulties pureed meals that look, smell, and taste like the real thing.

An evening student at the college for nearly a decade, McCloskey won first place at the Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic Angel Capital Expo last month at Drexel University. The win entitles her to $25,000 in professional services from Keiretsu investors and comes on the heels of her winning $4,000, first place, and grand prize at West Chester University’s Annual Business Idea Competition — a victory that garnered her the invite to the prestigious Keiretsu Forum.

McCloskey’s success is all-the-more admirable because she has dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, disabilities that require her to spend much more time on her studies. Her disabilities are one of the reasons she has taken only one business class a semester for the last 10 years at the college.

McCloskey keeps a hectic schedule. She is a caregiver at two separate residential homes, cleans commercial office buildings, and has raised her 19-year-old daughter as a single parent.

“Every day, I am studying three hours,” McCloskey said, adding that her study regimen involves reading an assignment, producing a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, and making a study outline.

Her study habits paid off when she presented her business in a five-minute, fast pitch to nearly 100 investors and judges at the Keiretsu Forum, a worldwide investment community of private equity angel investors, venture capitalists, and corporate/institutional investors.

One of four contestants in her category, McCloskey competed against students, many of whom have master’s degrees.

“I didn’t think I was going to win because I was up against people with master’s degrees,” she said. “I was nervous the first 30 seconds, and then after that, the nervousness passed because I really know my product.”

McCloskey’s Elite Pureed Meals provides nutritional, pureed meals, such as New York strip steak with baby carrots and mashed potatoes; barbequed chicken with corn on the cob, potatoes and gravy; and pork chops with baby peas, mashed potatoes and gravy.

The meals are targeted to a market she says consists of more than 180,000 people in Greater Philadelphia. Her meals go from freezer, to microwave, to table in five minutes or less, she says, and they do not lose their shape.

She credits Delaware County Community College professors, staff, and support services for students with disabilities for helping her achieve her goal and for helping her hone her business plan, which she presented to classmates in her Principles of Marketing class.

“Thank you for your time and support in encouraging me to move forward in my education,” McCloskey wrote in a recent e-mail to the college’s Office of Disability Services. “No matter what age you are, the possibilities are endless. Attending Delaware County Community College has given me the drive and focus to always think outside of the box.

“I encourage everyone, no matter what age, to be open-mined, to be a forward thinker because that is exactly what the professors at the college have given me.”

Ann Binder, the college’s director of disability services, praised McCloskey.

“It has been a pleasure to support Colleen in persevering to reach her educational and career goals,” Binder said. “She is an inspiration to all.”

With just one more class to go, McCloskey expects to graduate with an associate’s degree next year. By then, she hopes her business will be thriving.