BHS wins, Centennial takes third in national business competition
| Thursday, Mar 26 2009 08:48 PM
Last Updated Monday, Mar 30 2009 04:22 PM
It’s a lesson any executive can attest to: Success in business sometimes comes down to having a strong work ethic, a willingness to collaborate with outsiders and the ability to adapt under new circumstances.
So it went this week for two local high school teams that won national glory at a virtual business competition in New York City.
Members of Bakersfield High School’s team learned Thursday that they took first place in the two-day competition, while Centennial High’s team placed third out of 18 top teams from across the country.
“We’re pretty happy, pretty excited,” senior Jacob Parks, CEO of BHS’s team, said by phone from New York, his voice failing amid the celebration.
The virtual enterprise program is intended to be as real to life as possible. After setting up detailed aspects of their companies, student participants spend virtual paychecks on things like living expenses, transportation and vacations.
This week’s competition involved presenting business plans and answering questions from a panel of judges.
BHS again entered its consumer electronics virtual business, The Source, which last year earned second place in the national competition.
This year, BHS program instructor Jake Stuebbe said, the business focused more on family home entertainment products, in line with new trends in the changing national economy.
Aside from working after school and over the summer, the team benefited from the assistance of several local businesses, including BestBuy, upon which the virtual business was based.
“We were just given so much help along the way,” Stuebbe said.
The Centennial team’s first-year business, Picture This, used a similar strategy, putting in long hours and working closely with the Moneywise Guys of local radio fame.
But what made program coordinator Tamara Combs proudest was their ability to overcome unforeseen challenges, including a laptop that proved incompatible during one stage of the competition, and a mix-up that resulted in an outdated slide presentation turning up during a key speech.
“At that point,” Combs said, “we didn’t know if all of the financial slides at the end of the presentations were going to be there.”
Parks said the experience again proved very valuable.
“You can read as much as you want from a book,” he said, “but it doesn’t quite compare to having this real-world experience.”
