Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
IRONWOOD STUDENTS, from left, Allison Clemens, Kathleen Meiloszyk and Corissa Mattson qualified to competed in the Business Professionals of American National Leadership Conference in Anaheim Calif., from May 5-10. Katie Erickson, not pictured, also qualified to compete at the national level.
IRONWOOD - Four Ironwood students are heading to Anaheim Calif., to compete in the Business Professionals of America National Leadership Conference from May 5 to May 10.
Ironwood seniors Allison Clemens and Katie Erickson, along with sophomores Kathleen Meiloszyk and Corrissa Mattson scored high enough at the State Leadership Conference in Grand Rapids, held from March 19 to 22, that they advanced to the national level.
"The conference will be the culmination of a school years' worth of business education and training which members of the local chapter of Business Professionals of America at Ironwood have received," said chapter adviser Ann Wuorinen, who teaches the school's business management and computer technology classes.
The Business Professionals of America competition features over 300 categories that students can compete in, Wuorinen explained, that test a wide variety of business and computer skills; ranging from the ability to type accurately to producing a broadcast news segment.
Clemens competed in a variety of Microsoft Office programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Clemens explained that the competition is designed to simulate a variety of tasks that an office secretary might face.
"So basically I'm given a scenario, like I'm...a secretary, so then I would have to go through my daily business," said Clemens. "I go (into the competition) knowing the company name and who the CEO and who (the department managers are). Then its a matter of knowing how to format things and ... make up a flyer for an event or a powerpoint. They give you the test once you get there so you don't actually know what you are doing until you get there."
Meilszyk competed in keyboarding production that tested accuracy when typing and editing a document.
"So basically, I type and format different things in Word. Letters memorandums, tables...that kind of stuff. You get an hour and then you are graded on errors," said Meiloszyk. "You go in and you sit at the computer, you get this packet of papers, they are unformatted letters and stuff like that ... and you open up Word and you type all these different things up. When you are done with one, you print it off and they bring it to you. When you are done with all of them you take your finished assignments, and staple them together and turn them in."
According to Wuorinen, zero errors meant a perfect paper, one error was scored as a 90 percent, two errors resulted in a 70 percent and anything with more than two errors was given a zero. The fastest to finish was used as a potential tiebreaker.
Mattson and Erickson's competition required them to take a number of tests on a variety of subjects, most of which were related to human resource or project manager jobs. Adding to the difficulty of the event was the fact that, while the other competitions only featured those who scored high enough to advance past the regional tournaments, the tests could be taken by anyone - pitting Mattson and Erickson against a much larger pool of competitors.
Clemens was especially excited for the chance to compete in Anaheim, as it's the culmination of her time in the school's BPA chapter.
"This is kind of what I've been looking forward to since I was a freshman," said Clemens. "Once I figured out what BPA was and I joined it, this has always been my goal."
The four will join over 5,000 conference delegates from across the nation to compete in the various skills competitions.
"Now they are no longer representing Ironwood or the region, they are representing the state of Michigan," said Wuorinen.
At the individual level, the top five finishers in each category advanced to nationals. The four were part of the school's 11 students who had advanced to compete at the state level. The school's team finished 10 in the state - unlike the individual events, only the top two teams advance to nationals - which Wuorinen said was still a remarkable achievement, given the teams represent the best in the state.
The students are now fundraising to help defray the travel costs to compete in Anaheim, anyone interested in helping can contact Wuorinen at the Ironwood Area Schools.
