Twenty-one Nipmuc High School DECA students attended the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) in Anaheim CA from April 24 – 29. Students from nine countries and all 50 states made up the 18,000 participants. Students qualified for the ICDC by placing within the top four of their respective business specialty at the State Conference.
Owen Bradley and Peter Davey, both Juniors at Nipmuc Regional High School, competed as a team against 200 participants from around the world at ICDC in the Test and Role Play category; their respective business specialty was Sports and Entertainment Marketing. Owen and Peter placed within the top ten with Owen placing first on the test portion.
Gary Parras, Nipmuc DECA coach, said “It was pretty amazing; Owen and Peter were recognized in front of 18,000 kids.” When asked what made them a successful team Parras said, “They play off each other, have awesome personalities and take it seriously.”
An example of what Owen and Peter presented for the role play portion was a promotional plan for an “energy bracelet” for athletes to track miles run, calories burned, etc. They were presented with the case study and then reviewed, developed and presented the advertising and promotional plan for the new product.
This is Peter and Owen’s second year competing in DECA, last year they made it to States. They both said DECA is fun. “You get to compete, hang out with your friends, meet new people and most of all represent your school. I’ve gotten much better at communicating and public speaking since I’ve joined DECA, and I’ve gotten better at organizing my thoughts.” Peter said in an email. In addition to being fun, Owen said he participates “because of the skills learned along the way, probably the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of DECA so far is presentation skills, whether presenting to a judge, a job interview, or just a class presentation, DECA has helped me to improve these skills dramatically.”
In addition to DECA, Owen is Nipmuc Student Council Treasurer, Football Captain and a member of the Lacrosse team. Peter is an honor roll student and practices Taekwondo.
Congratulations Owen and Peter.
Students who qualified from the DECA SCDC (STATE CAREER DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE)
Alyssa Imparato and Erin Gagnon – Hospitality and Tourism Operations Research; Christopher Leduc – Creative Marketing Project; Colin Jackson, Daniel Dias, and Anthony Gebo – Business Services Operations Research; Emily Ciantra and Stephen Pihl – Public Relations Project; Hannah Kackley and Haley Sauter – Entrpreneurship Growing Your Business; Nicole Mazzola, Rachel Hetu, and Taylor Olson- Financial Literacy Promotion Plan; Peter Davey and Owen Bradley – Sports and Entertainment Team Decision Making; Christopher Desilets- Sports and Entertainment Marketing; Robert Aziz – State Officer Elect; Kendall Till – Hospitality and Tourism Professional Selling Event
UPTON DAILY 