About Business Professionals of America (BPA)
BPA is the leading career and technical student organization for students pursuing careers in business related fields. The organization has over 43,000 members composed of students at the middle, secondary, and post-secondary levels. The workplace skills assessment program competitions are a major part of the organization which allows students to showcase their career skills at the regional, state, and national levels in one of 72 competitive events. Some of BPA's other major programs include the National Leadership Academy, Officer Elections and scholarships. For more information about BPA, please visit: www.bpa.org/about
Past Involvement
As a member of the organization during the junior and senior years of my high school career, I had the opportunity to learn about the organization as a whole, and ultimately make an impact. It was during my senior year of high school when I started becoming much more involved with the organization. Since then, I have not looked back.
Eastland Career Center Chapter Officer
The Eastland Career Center Chapter of Business Professionals of America is currently one of the largest membership chapters in Ohio. As a high school senior, I knew it would be an important task to help lead the organization to success. I never knew what was in store for me until after I was elected as the Chapter President. However, it became one of the most valuable experiences of my life.
Being a part of an officer team at such a high achieving school sometimes puts pressure on the officers to lead great events. It was the responsibility of the officer team to lead and organize monthly chapter meetings that embody the principles of BPA. While the positions carried a lot of responsibility, it's easy to say that even when adversity did strike, my officer team was more than up for the challenge. |
From Left: Mo N, Abby West, Samantha H, Jaden R, Clay G, Carmearl T
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Region 14 Officer
From Left: Brittany S, Rycki B, Danielle W, Sam H, Darcy F, Clay G
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After becoming a part of my first ever officer team, my eyes were opened to the wide range of opportunity that was present within the organization. From there, I decided to run for the Region 14 Officer position which covers schools across central Ohio. After being elected as the Region 14 President, I began my run with one of the most unique team experiences I have had at the time. The Region 14 Officer Team comprised of four students from Central Crossing High School in Grove City, and two from Eastland Career Center in Groveport. The two schools weren't very close together which made teamwork a tougher challenge. However, the team consisted of high achieving individuals as we were all able to pull together and put on excellent Region 14 conferences. |
Ohio Association Officer
With opportunities galore, I knew I wanted to become a part of the Ohio Association State Officer Team. While joining my chapter team required a speech, regional team requiring a speech and interview, the Ohio Association team requires 12 candidates to be selected from out of around 100 candidate hopefuls interviewing. Then, the candidates must campaign at the Fall Leadership Conference and give a speech in front of thousands of Ohio Association members in order to be voted on to the Ohio Association officer team. The process was long, but was more than worth it in the end as I was elected as the Parliamentarian on the Ohio Association Officer Team.
It was an amazing experience being a part of this officer team. The Ohio Association includes over 7,000 members, which put the leadership of each officer under a microscope. I could not have asked for better teammates as our Ohio Association Officer Team flourished. Organizing the State Leadership Conference, Fall Leadership Conference, and representing at the National Leadership Conference in Indianapolis provided an experience that I will never forget. |
From Left: Julianna K, Clay G, Nick J, Jayme A, Alyssa R, Kaylie A
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National 1st Place, Financial Analyst Team
From Left: Clay G, Mo N, Keirre A
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In addition to officer positions, competitions were also a huge part of my involvement with Business Professionals of America. There are three levels of competition which include region, state, and national. Only the best team or individual is selected from each level, with dozens of teams and individuals participating per competitive event in over 23 states.
During my junior year of high school, I competed on a financial analyst team. The team didn't make it very far that year. In fact, my financial analyst team was disqualified soon after wining regional first place on stage after breaking an unwritten rule we didn't know about. This was a major setback for our team as we lacked the experience to make a deep run during our final year. However, this only fueled the fire and determination that was burning inside each of my teammates as we are all winners and would do whatever it took to be successful. This required hours of practice and performance each week from my team as stress and adversity would consistently strike time and time again as we progressed from regional to state, to national competition. Our projector even broke when giving our very final financial analyst team presentation to the judges at nationals! Fortunately for me, I was on the best financial analyst team in the nation, which included some of the best teammates in the world. |