Summer business event provides teachable moments for teens

The next generation of business leaders took their first plunge into the practical world of business last month when 71 high school students from across the state attended the 25th anniversary session of Missouri Business Week.
For five days, the high school students, who must be a sophomore, junior or senior next fall, ran a hypothetical company under the guidance of volunteer business leaders from around the state. The students developed a product, brought it to production and marketed it in competition with other companies, said Mary LaBarbera, director of Missouri Business Week.
Operated by the Center for Education and Enterprise, a nonprofit foundation run by the Missouri Association of Realtors and funded by private donations, this year’s event called for each company to manufacture a T-shirt and follow the business for eight quarters in a computer simulation. Five teams of about 14 students each earned points based on their business profile, website design, TV advertisement, trade show exhibit and some additional recreational activities.
“The most profitable company won, just like in real life,” LaBarbera said. “The most heavily weighted section of the competition was ‘The Game.’ Each company crunched numbers to anticipate the market, balanced production and demand and kept the cash flowing.”
Interspersed with the competition, the students listened to speakers and worked through activities aimed at exploring different leadership styles, business ethics, decision-making and teamwork. For instance, groups of students participated in an ethics challenge in which they had to decide which patient received a heart transplant, debated what items to have on board to survive a shipwreck and demonstrated the effects of different leadership styles in a Tinkertoy experiment.

Sarah Verslues of Holts Summit, who will be a senior next fall at Helias High School in Jefferson City, said she especially enjoyed the speakers who spoke about leadership and using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to help a business.
Along with other businesspeople from around the state, Columbians who helped facilitate the ethics seminar included Matt Melton from Boone County National Bank, Heather Grote of Grote & Associates, Russell Duker of MasterTech Plumbing and HVAC, Craig McGonagle of McGonagle & Associates, Brian Hervey of T’s Etc. and Cindy Lake and Trina Williams from State Farm Insurance.
Local speakers at the event, among others from around the state, included Cathy Atkins, Savant Business Development Systems; Jamold Little, State Farm Insurance; Jonathan Sessions, Tech2 Consulting; Richard Mendenhall, RE/MAX Boone Realty; Brant Bukowsky, Bryan Rahn and Zane Corn, VA Mortgage Center; and Brian Hazelrigg, State Farm Insurance agent.
“I did enjoy my time there; it was very educational and fun at the same time,” said Jenafer Coleman, a senior next year at Hart Career Center in Mexico, Mo. “The main thing I learned is what actually goes on behind closed doors when starting a business.”

On the final day, the first-, second- and third-place companies in each category won recognition for their efforts, and then the staff announced the overall winner. After a tight competition this year, company D, known as “Tastees,” won the overall competition, LaBarbera said.
The event’s sponsors included the Missouri Association of Realtors, the University of Missouri Robert J. Trulaske Sr. School of Business, Citizens Mortgage Co., Ameren, Boone Electric Cooperative, VA Mortgage Center.com, the Mark Twain Association of Realtors, the Fox Family Foundation, Pure, Drury Hotels, the Mary Kaszuba Memorial Fund, the Missouri Women’s Council of Realtors, Doug Andrews-Century Realty, Scott Mears-RE/MAX Professionals, Gay Lynne Dawson of Wildwood Ranch Realty, the Pro 100 Realtors of Joplin, State Farm Insurance, Landmark Bank, CenturyLink, the Forte Institute, the Mineral Area Board of Realtors and Boone County National Bank. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Missouri Chamber of Commerce Education Department provided program assistance.
“It’s a life-changing, eye-opening experience,” LaBarbera said. “It’s a great life experience of being in a company, seeing what it takes to make a business work.”
Might there be a future Warren Buffett among the students who attended? Verslues said she enjoyed working with the numbers and wouldn’t mind filling that role with a career in accounting or finance. “I was already thinking about going into business a little bit,” she said. “I think [the Missouri Business Week experience] pushed me more toward that also. I would recommend it for other high school students who are interested in business.”