Pictured (left to right) are Owen Snyder (senior), Koller Winterrowd (senior), Million Bryant (senior), and Brock Short (junior). The group heads to BPA State Leadership Conference on Thursday, March 10 to compete.
Dawn Hatfield | The Daily Advocate
By Dawn Hatfield
DailyAdvocate.com
GREENVILLE — A team of Greenville High School students is headed to The Business Professionals of America, Ohio Association, State Leadership Conference [SLC] on Thursday, March 10 at the Hyatt Regency Columbus. Resuming in-person competition for the first time since the start of the pandemic, students are looking forward to the challenge.
According to bpa.org, “The Business Professionals of America, Ohio Association, State Leadership Conference brings together competitors, business and industry partners, advisors, and vendors to provide an opportunity for Ohio career-technical education students to showcase their development of leadership skills and career-related competencies… The State Leadership Conference is the highlight of the Ohio Association year, and helps more than 2,000 members accomplish these objectives.”
The Greenville High School team is comprised of Koller Winterrowd (senior), Million Bryant (senior), Owen Snyder (senior), and Brock Short (junior).
After placing first in regionals, Winterrowd, also a State Officer in Ohio BPA, explained the team’s area of expertise is financial analysis. “As a team or a group, we go through a company’s financials that they give us, and we provide solutions. For example, if they’re losing money in their sales, we provide a new way for them to gain sales,” said Winterrowd. “It takes a lot of innovation and math,” he added.
Bpa.org describes the Financial Analyst Team competition as “the use of analytical and problem solving skills to make decisions and recommendations using financial reports, both internal and external. The team analyzes and interprets reports from a business case study.”
Winterrowd and Bryant return to the team for their second year. In 2021, their team made it all the way to Nationals, placing seventh.
When asked what led him to join the team, Short said, “I heard about this class from Million, actually. He told me the experience of them going to Nationals and possibly [going again]. This year Nationals is in Texas, and the opportunity to travel like that with this group would be great.”
In addition to the appeal of potentially achieving Nationals, Snyder said, “I thought it would be a really cool experience… it’s really a one-of-a-kind thing.”
Looking ahead to Thursday’s competition, the team feels confident. Bryant said, “I think we are well-prepared. Our PowerPoint and financial data are all fixed. We took our judges’ comments on how we should make our PowerPoint better, and we’ve adjusted. Now, I think we are going in pretty strong. With the experience [we] have with stuff like this, we know what it takes to win in this field of competition.”
Winterrowd said, “Taking last year into consideration, I will say that our presentation and our team, I think, are stronger than before. We have a very good chance, I believe.”
“Our chemistry between all of us is pretty good too,” said Bryant. Winterrowd agreed, “We definitely can bounce [great ideas] off each other.”
Bryant then lit up and said, “It’s more of a passion competition… I know there are other people we will be going against that are as passionate about it as I am. It comes down to who is going to be mentally strong when we go before the judges, ‘cause, you know, judges can be scary.”
Dawn Hatfield covers education stories for The Daily Advocate. Have a school-related event to share? Reach out by email at [email protected] or by phone at 937-569-0066.
