Pictured, left to right: Professor Rick Miller, Xavier Yoder, Reggie Telemaque, Alex Reichard, Professor Dr. David Stehlik.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. – A team of University of Saint Francis students won first place in the national Marketplace Simulation Challenge presented by The Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization.
RAX, a three-member team from Professor Dr. David Stehlik’s USF’s Business 101 (Introduction to Business Principles) class won the competition and a second USF team, Essential Biking, was among six finalists. The RAX team earned $1,000 with the win.
Students on the winning RAX team were Reggie Telemaque, Alex Reichard and Xavier Yoder. All three students are part of the Computer Science program directed by Professor Rick Miller.
“It’s especially validating when non-business students taking Business 101 out-compete entrepreneurship students – many participating as members of national business/entrepreneurship clubs – on a national scale, in our first year competing and with our first exposure to the simulation. This simulation has had over 1 million student participants at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive education levels,” Dr. Stehlik said.
USF students on the finalist-qualifying Essential Biking team were Dashawn Jackson, Jalen Moss and Thomas Sordelet.
The process for the competition: Before a board of founders, business coaches and executive leaders, students present (synchronous-remote, with self-created slide deck) their market analysis, strategy formulation addressing market interest, consistency in implementing that strategy and its attendant tactics, evaluations of their own performance at functional and organizational levels, and expectations and preparations for the market’s future. And, given this is a learning and training exercise supporting evidence-based strategic management and decision-making, students also report out their lessons learned and connect those lessons to expected application in professional contexts.
For more information, please contact Dr. David Stehlik at 260-399-7700, ext. 8305 or dstehlik@sf.edu.
Founded in 1890 in the Catholic Franciscan tradition, the University of Saint Francis offers more than 60 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs through the College of Health Sciences, College of Arts, Sciences, and Business and College of Adult and Distance Education. In addition to its traditional programs, USF designs focused curricula for working adults in Fort Wayne, Crown Point and online. USF Downtown houses the university’s business and music technology programs while offering enhanced internship and networking opportunities for students. The University of Saint Francis campus experience includes 18 athletic programs boasting two individual and four team NAIA national championships and is recognized as an NAIA Five-Star Champion of Character institution. Approximately 2,200 students from a broad geographic region attend USF.