Members of Business Professionals of America (BPA) are thrilled to be attending nationals this spring. BPA members, seniors Maxine Osei and Jay Lohr, juniors Mushtaq Ibrahim, Abbey Kovalak, Philip Evitson and Kaylee Kellog won first place in areas such as podcast production, presentation management and interview skills due to their hard work, planning and time commitment.

BPA is an organization that provides students with numerous opportunities involving business skills and development. This organization offers the exploration of outlets not commonly introduced by public education. Meetings are held in a variety of locations, including the members’ schools and homes. Co-President, Kovalak, increased the number of members from 2019, when the club comprised of herself and another member who would graduate that year.

“I kind of built the club up from just me and one other person to around 12 people and it has just been growing since,” co-president Kovalak said.

BPA is for students looking to broaden their academic and economic horizons. With this goal in mind, they commit their time to sharpening their interviewing, resume building and even public speaking skills. The organization prepares students for any professional career involving business.

Not only does BPA provide support for their student members, many members commit their time to assisting the community. BPA members in the community formed a winter gear drive through Valley Outreach distributing donations to families of low income.

Kovalak explained that the organizations participation in the “Valley Outreach winter drive” stood as an “offering to the community” as they distributed clothing and resources needed during the wintertime to impoverished families.

In BPA, students must compete in one team competition and multiple solo competitions, and similar to most competitive extracurricular activities, students may advance to the next level of competition according on how well they do in previous rounds.

Lohr explained that there are multiple competitions with various requirements and if students perform well in their competitions they are allowed to either move up a level and go to state, or take a test based on the area of business one is interested in.

Students often feel that there is a difficult aspect in BPA that additionally prepares them for the business world. One characteristic of the organization that students usually need lots of preparation for are the competitions. In Competitions, students traditionally wear business attire and are expected to present themselves in a professional manner.

“We went into the business environment, we were all dressed up,” Kellog said.

BPA allows students to utilize skills they take an interest in and learn more about the topics associated with that set of skills. Members are presented with opportunities ranging from accounting and finances to programming and entrepreneurship.

“We have people in our club who compete in accounting and finances in java programming, I compete in entrepreneurship,” Kovalak said.

Successful students in this organization will be using their set of skills and techniques in the upcoming Nationals competition. Business Professionals of America provides countless opportunities in helping students improve their business skills and gain an experience they may not find elsewhere.

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Valerius overcomes challenges in his first year as BPA student