Members of UND Deca Chapter Place at International Competition

As Senior Marketing Major, Elizabeth Denning walked into the DECA International Career Development Conference (ICDC) to compete for first place in fashion merchandizing; she knew exactly who her biggest competition was. “I was competing against girls from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, New York,” says Denning. “These girls had outfits that were like five times more expensive than my outfits.” Luckily for Denning, price tags didn’t determine the winner as she took first place. “I’ve never taking a fashion merchandising class in my life. The fact that I was able to win this competition based on the excellent education I received and everything we learned about in marketing classes and then just incorporate fashion from what I learned in my own time from fashion magazines or working in retail was huge. It was huge I was able to do that,” says Denning. Three other UND students also saw success at ICDC in Washington D.C. One of them being Computer Science Major, Evan Romuld; a student who placed third in an Entrepreneurship Challenge. “In my challenge I had to create a business that improved a process of service like Uber did. That’s the example they used. My business was to laser measure motorcycle helmets so it’s a better fitting helmet and it’s just overall easier to get that fit and it’s better for safety,” says Romuld. “I placed third out of 75 teams.” In addition to Denning and Romuld, Managerial Finance and Accountancy major, Mitch Hersch made it to the top 10 in Corporate Finance Business Simulation. And, Entrepreneurship major, Rachael Fix made it to the top ten in Hotel and Lodging Business Simulation. Current Chapter Treasurer and past State President, Shawn Peterson received the DECA Inc. scholarship, the organization’s top scholarship. And, as a whole chapter, the UND DECA group won DECA’s Leadership Passport Award; an award Peterson says requires things like dedication to community service projects and attending certain conferences. “In a way it’s a checklist of your school’s ability to complete tasks,” says Peterson. While their team is small, Denning, Peterson and Romuld all agree that the group made a big impact at this year’s competition. “It’s huge but we’re a really small chapter and the percentage of people who got up there was impressive so we definitely represented well,” says Denning. And they hope to do the same next year