Future business leaders show initiative with club

Cedar Grove-Belgium High School senior Lily Nehring wants to go into marketing and already has a start on her career.

Nehring, president of the high school’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter, led the growth of the second-year club from a few people to more than 20.

“It’s honestly amazing. I’m still in shock,” Nehring said at this month’s FBLA kickoff meeting.

“I just put some posters in the hallways and did more announcements.”

Business teacher and club advisor Landa Paradise said Nehring took the initiative at the start of the school year.

“She came in right away, ‘What are we doing for FBLA?’” she said.

FBLA bills itself as the largest business and career technical student organization in the world, offering a variety of projects, proposals and tests on everything from technology to tourism and transportation to entrepreneurship.

Students compete at regional events and may qualify for state, then nationals. Events can entail taking a test on a topic or creating presentations such as a business plan or data analysis. In addition, role playing events in marketing and management are offered, calling on students from different schools to work together on the spot.

Nehring said she loves working with a variety of people and helped create a business proposal at last year’s state leadership conference in Green Bay.

Some of her favorite parts of the club are “the fun activities that open up my eyes to business. I learn a few things from other people,” she said.

As president, Nehring plans events and advertises them. For the kickoff meeting, she handed out gold gift bags with candy and stickers inside.

“The beauty of this chapter is the students run it. They’re kind of on their own,” Paradise said.

Senior Cameron Holle is the other returning member from last year — everyone else graduated. He is the chapter’s vice president.

Holle wants to become a chief financial officer for a large business. He took a test on business administration last year and advanced to the second round of state competition.

He learned “vocabulary I would not have known” and said the test itself was a learning opportunity addressing topics business administrators would need to know.

Paradise said she can see that experience helped Holle.

“He’s building confidence,” she said.

This year, Holle is considering doing a speech or spreadsheet on coding, creating an app and a website.

“There’s a lot of different things you can do,” he said.

The chapter holds meetings, but students work on their own to create their presentations or study for tests.

“It’s very independent,” Paradise said.

Just having a chapter also opens other opportunities, such as field trips to businesses. Holle competed in Junior Achievement Titans, a simulation in which students compete as CEOs. Holle was on a three-member team that competed at Acuity Insurance in Sheboygan. The winning team got $1,000 and the top three got money. Holle’s team finished just out of the money.

Paradise said she wants to take the team on an overnight trip to state competition this year to provide an experience and expose the students to more opportunities.

Cedar Grove-Belgium’s 20-plus members are part of 230,000 members in middle and high schools and colleges across the world.

Nehring said her goal was to have a decent-sized club and “now we’ve got a bunch.”

Paradise is thrilled the chapter is taking off in just its second year.

“It’s a little nerve-wracking starting it. It’s a big endeavor,” she said.

“What’s really nice is a lot of underclassmen are very interested in business and they want to learn.”