Phi Beta Lambda students pose with their awards. Butler’s PBL chapter will send six students to the national competition held in Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday, June 23 through Tuesday, June 26. Photo courtesy of Janice Akap

Dominic Brown
Lantern Staff

Butler Community College was the host of Phi Beta Lambda’s 67th Annual Kansas State Leadership Conference Saturday, March 10. Phi Beta Lambda (PBL) is a national business leadership organization, which challenges students to apply skills learned in their business courses to compete in various business related competitions. Apart from this, they can also complete community service projects and network with businesses.

“It’s a great way to bring business and education together,” Professor and Butler/State PBL Advisor Janice Akao said.

PBL is a large national organization with 12,000 national members, about 1,000 of which belonging to Kansas schools. Consistently, Butler is successful in competition and usually has students qualify for the national competition. This year, nine chapters competed at this year’s conference: Butler Community College, Labette Community College, Seward Community College, Flint Hills Technical College, Emporia State, Central Christian College, Kansas University, Fort Hays State and Tabor College.

At conferences, apart from competing in events, students will sit in with speakers to learn about particular areas of business.

In PBL, students compete in various business related events such as computerized testing over related knowledge, participate in case studies, have impromptu speaking where the students will be given an issue or topic to prepare and present in a short period of time, go through mock interviews, do accounting analysis and pitch sales.

“Some are role-play where students do presentations prepared ahead of time,” Akao said. “One girl’s family business was selling soap, so that’s what she ‘sold’.”

This year, there were five workshops sessions with themes like “4 Simple Steps to Start a Business Like a Billionaire” presented by Brady Sherman who laid out steps to take when starting a business, “How to Captain Your Leader-ship” by PBL national President Kimberly Clark who shared her personal map for success along with tips to elevate leadership skills and “Elevate Your Chapter” also by Clark sharing how to have success within your local PBL chapter. Butler alumna Emily France-Jensen, vice president at Sunflower Mountain Distribution, delivered the keynote address at the conference.
Great Western Dining catered the event. Nationals will be held in Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday, June 23 through Tuesday, June 26.

Those who received awards include:

Team of Tara Varner and Emily Wagner
Second place – Business Decision Making

Emily Wagner
Second place – Computer Concepts
First place – Network Concepts
First place – Network Design
First place – Project Management

Gordan Hayden
Second place – Help Desk

John Hacker
Third place – Accounting Analysis
& Decision Making
Second place – Accounting for
Professionals
First place – Global Analysis & Decision Making
First place – Macroeconomics
First place – Microeconomics

Team of Simaje Davis and John Hacker
First place – Global Analysis & Decision
Making

Sky Ky (Phi Long Ky)
First place – Management Analysis & Decision Making
First place – Marketing Analysis & Decsion Making
Second place – Strategic Analysis & Decision Making

Tara Varner
Second place – Sales Presentation