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Prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.
By connecting the classroom to the boardroom Collegiate DECA prepares the next generation of business leaders to be:
Growing up in Lynchburg, Virginia, her high school activities kept her busy and out of trouble. So busy, in fact, you wonder how she ever came up for air. Travel teams for volley ball; rec volley ball; tennis; indoor/outdoor track; and the spirit club Heritage Hooligan’s. In between that and her studies, she held down two jobs in a movie theater and doing day care.
But according to her parents, it wasn’t an option not to go to college. She had taken a marketing class in high school and there she had learned about DECA. But after a semester at Radford University that ended up with academic p…
She remembers the moment as if it were yesterday, though now it was years ago. Spring semester at St. Cloud State, 8:00 a.m., and she was walking back towards her dorm. The only problem was that all the other students were walking in the opposite direction: toward class.
It wasn’t that she didn’t value education: both of her parents had gone to college. It was simply that she had no direction. That summer, not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, or who she wanted to be, she informed her parents she was dropping out of college. Her Dad was firm: “If you don’t go back right now…
Today if you meet him, he’s a whirling dervish—so full of energy and enthusiasm that it’s beyond contagious. You literally want to hire him on the spot or create a job for him. You want him on your team. So it’s hard to imagine that his life wasn’t always so bright and enthusiastic. In high school, his parents took a tough-love approach and sent him away to St. George, Utah hoping it would change his life. It did, and he came back to Minnesota and high school. His career path led him to fast-food restaurants: Subway and Pizza Hut. But he discovered, as did others, that he was a di…
With 4300 students to educate, he has championed a culture built on relationships. It’s a culture of curiosity and innovation that has driven his college to be named the “8th Best Community College” in the nation by Washington Monthly and achieved a “Top 120 College” ranking for two year colleges by The Aspen Foundation.
His own journey to the top began at the University of Minnesota Crookston where he majored in hospitality management. After working for Mannings Food Service Management for a year or two, he went back to St. Cloud State, majoring in marketing and hospitality. As part of his…
Action was a part of her vocabulary from a very young age. Growing up in 4-H, she gave her first public speech at the age of eight. Active on the volleyball team and Minnesota High School Rodeo, she held the title of Miss High School Rodeo Minnesota. So it’s not surprising that she followed that high school energy to Ridgewater College in Hutchinson.
But as with many that appear to “have it all” in the eyes of the world, she had her doubts. Bad decisions were made. Dropping out of school, she began working at the family business, training and boarding horses. She felt lost; without direct…
She jokes that when she was in high school, she wasn’t tall enough to be a cheerleader. She wasn’t flexible enough to be a gymnast. The choir and the band didn’t want her. So she went to work at McDonald’s… for $1.91 an hour.
After a year in a secretarial program, she enrolled at the community college in Bismarck, North Dakota. She ended up in the marketing program, however, and heard about DECA. “Why would I want to do this?” she thought. “What’s in it for me?”
The answer? “It will be good for you. It builds character.”
One of her best friends who had worked with her at McDonald’s was al…