44.0°,
Mostly Cloudy The business of Hewlett students is business
The National Business Plan competition in April is the next stop for the Hewlett High School Virtual Enterprise team as they finished first out of 10 schools in the inaugural Long Island Business Plan competition on Jan. 6 at Molloy College.
Barbara Mattes, chair of the Business Education Department and Virtual Enterprise professor, said Virtual Enterprise exists in more than 450 schools nationwide and operates as a student-run business.
“Students run the business, work in various departments and do business with other students in the Virtual Enterprise network,” Mattes said. “They create their own virtual economy, create pretend loans and each student is an employee so they get an online paycheck.”
The company has a chief executive officer and other top officers who are chosen by Mattes after students submit a resume and letter, and completes a personality test. She also considers the student’s grades and school attendance to see who will best fit into the position.
Spyros Messados, a senior and CEO of ChampionShip, the Hewlett-run Virtual Enterprise shipping company, said it was exciting being in front of other schools and knew the team had a chance at winning the Business Plan competition. “We nailed our presentation and got a huge applause from the audience and our competition,” he said.
Messados said the team came up with the business plan by simplifying the way they price and ship. He also said they added a product line that includes a toy truck which has been a great benefit to the company. “We also have clients who ship animals so we added dog cages to the product line as well,” Messados said.
Senior Adam Rubenstein is the Human Resources officer for Virtual Enterprise and said the team expected nothing less than first place after all the hard work they put into their presentation. “The class prepared us for the whole competition and we participated in the competition for good recognition for our school and for people to see how good and important the Virtual Enterprise class is,” he said.
