Gateway Collegiate DECA team members Alexander Paul, David Czuper, Jessica Harris and Colleen Koch took first-place honors at the 56th Wisconsin Collegiate DECA annual Spring Competitive Events Conference held Feb. 22 to Feb. 24 at Lake Lawn Lodge in Delavan.
In all, nine Gateway students took top three honors in 12 different categories, with three placing in the top three in two different categories.
Paul (Kenosha) captured first place in the Human Resources competition category, Czuper (Racine) first in Professional Sales and the team of Harris (Kenosha) and Koch (Milwaukee) first in International Marketing. Czuper placed in the top 10 last year in the same category, but outside of the top three slots.
More than 175 students from Wisconsin technical and four-year colleges competed at the event in marketing, business and accounting events judged by business professionals from across the state.
Many students took honors with second- and third-place finishes, as well.
Second-place honors include:
- Jacob Powell (Kenosha), Banking Financial Services
- The team of Ryan Bognar (Wind Lake) and Violeta Tellez (Lake Geneva), Emerging Technology Marketing Strategies. Bognar won first place in this category last year.
- The team of Robert Harris IV (Kenosha), and Maxwell McDonald (Pleasant Prairie), Business to Business Marketing
- Diana Griego (Union Grove), Professional Sales. Griego also took honors in the Fashion Merchandising and Marketing & Professional Sales category last year.
Gateway students also took third-place honors. They are:
- John Neu (Burlington), Accounting
- Czuper, Travel and Tourism
- Yesenia Martinez-Hall (Trevor), Human Resources
- Joseph Wilbur (Whitewater), Marketing Management
- The team of Bognar and Tellez, Sports and Entertainment Marketing
Those taking top three honors automatically qualify to compete at the Collegiate DECA international conference April in Washington D.C. However, several Gateway students were finalists and also qualified to compete at the international conference in the following events:
- Jennifer Greeley (Mount Pleasant), Professional Sales
- Hunter Anderson (Kenosha), Professional Sales
- Grace Epting (Racine), Professional Sales
- David St Peter (Kenosha), Sales Management Meeting
- Tyler Lewandowski (Kenosha), Retail Management
- Natasha Dunn (Burlington), Marketing Management
- Megan Lau (Trevor), Retail Management
- The team of Lauren Boston (Kenosha) and Griego, Business Ethics
Tellez was also elected to serve as the 2018-19 DECA state vice president and John Gauthier (Racine) took second place in the DECA Diamond Service Award. The Gateway DECA Chapter took second place in the Civic Consciousness Award.
