The Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) is a selective national program that Westhill students can be a part of. The FBLA works with over 230,000 members to prepare them for careers in business, focusing on leadership development, academic competitions, educational programs, membership benefits, community service and awards and recognition.
The FBLA National Awards Program is a series of competitions, tests and presentations that “recognizes and rewards excellence in a broad range of business and career-related areas.” Fifteen students from Westhill placed at the state level and qualified for the national competition. Students worked in teams and individually to place. Students learn valuable skills such as team work, design, planning, and presentation skills.
Areas being tested in the many competitions included agribusiness, advertising, accounting, business planning, client service, coding, programming, business ethics, social media campaigning, banking, emerging business issues, financial math, business presentations, computer application and many more.
Westhill students in tenth through twelfth grade competed in a variety of competitions through the FBLA virtual competitions to learn valuable business related skills. Students worked alone or in groups to create presentations to send to a panel of judges virtually.
Zach Young (’22) placed in second in the Intro to Business Presentations category.
“Through my competitive event, I learned that there are many groups of people, even ones nobody knows about, that all have to work together in order to run a business,” Young said.
Morgan McDonald (’21) placed first in the Emerging Business Issues category.
“I competed in the FBLA Emerging Business Issues competition with Talia Kunin and Brynn Spingola. We were tasked with presenting an analysis of the impact of technology on the modern business environment and were asked to design a plan for the effective implementation of such technologies. Not only did I learn a great deal about the ramifications of technology’s implementation in the work environment, but the competition also allowed me to apply the knowledge that I had built in the Academy of Finance to a practical and timely issue,” McDonald said.
Under the guidance of Mrs. Kurtz, fifteen students from Westhill placed in the FBLA state virtual competition. These students include:
1st Place for Intro to Financial Math: Arjun Anand
1st Place for Emerging Business Issues: Talia Kunin, Morgan McDonald & Brynn Spingola
2nd Place for Banking and Financial Systems: Gaurov Bansal, Priscilla Tehrani & Tejas Vermani
2nd Place for Intro to Business Presentations: Brandon Shapiro, Zachary Young & Piotr Zach
3rd Place for Business Calculations: Quinn Whelan
4th Place for Social Media Campaign: James Grosso, Anshul Gupta & Timothy Silkowitz
5th Place for Economics: Zachary Ostroff
