RE Lee FBLA 2004 National Champions

2004 National Winners!
FBLA American Enterprise Project

Local high school students win National Championship.

On July 17, 2004 , three young business leaders from Springfield stood on stage at the Denver Convention center as the top ten results were read one by one. In the end, they were named National Champions!

Robert E. Lee High School is very excited to announce that its Future Business Leaders of America chapter won 1^st place in the American Enterprise chapter event at the National Leadership Conference held in Denver , Colorado , July 14-17, 2004 . The chapter also received the prestigious Hollis and Kitty Guy Award, which is presented to the top chapters in the nation. The awards were presented at the end of the National Leadership Conference before a crowd of over 5,000 young business leaders.

The national winning presentation team members were: Noé Barrera, Priya Malik, Anh Nguyen. Robert E. Lee High School was also represented in the following individual/team events: Ji Zhou--Business Calculations, Michael Williams—Introduction to Parliamentary Procedures, Adeel Khan—Networking Design team, and Carlos Herbas—Banking and Finance. Jonathan Barrera, Stephanie Merino, and Lavendar Phan completed the national team delegation.

An overview/summary of the American Enterprise Project follows:

Students enter high school hoping to learn what it takes to be successful in life and achieve the American Dream. Robert E. Lee FBLA felt that success can be obtained in any field by having a solid foundation in business, finance, and technology and created 22 PowerPoint lessons to teach these skills. Our American Enterprise Project also benefited the business community by providing skilled, knowledgeable potential employees. As the project progressed, we discovered that many students had a language barrier taking our project in a new direction.

About 125 Lee FBLA members – 55 of whom were multilingual helped to plan, create, translate, and present the 6 business, 6 finance, and 10 technology lessons. Four different classroom arrangements and schedules were created. For most a main speaker stood at the front guiding the class in English, pausing between slides to let the translators help if needed. Using the students native languages allowed them to learn more effectively and quickly added a diverse, multilingual component for the business community’s potential talent pool. Participants were given the lessons on CD’s allowing the information to be shared with their families and communities.

Also, the Principal’s Community Advisory Council which is comprised of area business and community leaders was so impressed that they thought we should share the process. Lee FBLA created a How-to booklet with CD’s for the English for Speaker’s of Other Languages Transitional High School’s Career Fair so that other schools could help their communities as well.

Ending survey results showed that 98% felt that they benefited from the lessons and that this program should continue. Also, 68% said that they would use their new skills to try to obtain a job. We accomplished all of our goals and a few new ones that came along. The students have the skills for their American Dream and the business communities have diverse, multilingual talent which opens the door for growth into new communities.

We as the founders are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community.

Thank you.

Lee FBLA would like to thank their business sponsors: Apple Federal Credit Union, Lockheed Martin, Lee PTSA, Lee Alumni and Friends, Silver Diner, Bertucci’s, Wash Fair, Bob Evans, Milano’s Pizzeria, Cinnabon, and Family Hair Fashion; and their individual sponsors: Mary Chatlier and Lynnette Lowimore.