OTC SIFE team places first in regional competition

The Students in Free Enterprise team from Ozarks Technical Community College placed first at SIFE USA Regional Competition, held this week in Dallas, Texas.  This is the fifth Regional Championship for the College’s team.  In addition, the team qualified as a Finalist in the Financial Literacy Topic Competition, which is sponsored by HSBC.

This year’s team members include Brittany Vineyard and Sarah Gill, students from OTC’s Springfield campus; Will Bauer, Colt Giblin, Nicole Nemec, Ekaterina Semenova and Joanna Wenk, from the Branson Education Center; and Russell Jones, from the Richwood Valley campus. The assistance of faculty and staff, including Bera Nichols and Luisa Bird, SIFE advisors and business instructors, was instrumental in preparing the team for competition.  The team will travel to Minneapolis, Minn., to compete at the SIFE National Exposition in May.  

The group’s presentation at the competition consisted of a 24-minute presentation/video highlighting their year-long community outreach, education, and business projects.  The projects centered on SIFE’s core philosophies, of Market Economics, Success Skills, Entrepreneurship, Financial Literacy, Environmental Sustainability, Business Ethics and Program Effectiveness.   Some of this year’s projects included “The Credit Challenge,” “Holiday Bazaar,” “Let’s Can Hunger,” and  “Poverty to Prosperity: A Women’s Event.”

SIFE is an international non-profit organization active on more than 1400 college campuses in nearly 50 countries.  SIFE teams create economic opportunities in their communities in their communities by organizing outreach projects that promote free enterprise, market economics, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, success skills, environmental sustainability, and business ethics.  Each college’s projects are judged in competition on creativity and effectiveness.