“Practice practice practice,” recited SCTCC’s Collegiate DECA members after advisor Becky Shand asked them why she gets compliments on them at events. “And research!” Shand added.
On Friday, March 7, the group of 10 DECA members who qualified for the National Career Development Conference met in the Marketing Sales Management classroom to do just that.
After the practice, though, it was time to celebrate.
Darrin and Cherrish Emslander visited the practice session to present the team with a $3,500 donation to assist with travel expenses for the national conference held in San Francisco. The two own Siteworx Excavating and their daughter, Kiya, is on the Collegiate DECA team.
“Our daughter is part of DECA, but we believe that they are the future,” said Cherrish when asked why they decided to donate. “We support that.” Darrin added: “We’ve seen how it’s changed and influenced her and made her more confident.”
DJ Avenson, Kiya Emslander, Kaden Kadlec, Jason Karolus, David Macagnone, Matteo Mangili, Nate Martin, Ron Niehus, Julia Peter, Vanessa Santana had a very successful conference at the state level in late February. The conference provides students real-life business scenarios through not just the competition but also networking events with and feedback from potential employers. The competitive events are judged by industry professionals.
The six competition areas SCTCC excelled in were: Business to Business Marketing; Sales Management and Leadership; Hotel and Lodging; Restaurant and Food Service; Professional Sales (SCTCC swept that category!); and Sports Marketing.
Following a presentation of the check, students and guests alike shared cheesecake and cookies made by a couple of the students, and Santana showed the Emslanders what their DECA binders look like that they compile for competition.
The Collegiate DECA National Career Development Conference will be held April 5-8 in San Francisco, and thanks to the Emslanders and Siteworx Excavating, the trip just got a little bit easier.