Over the last few years, I have found myself spending more and more time in mentorship roles, helping both school age, college, and adult entrepreneurs follow their dreams of starting their own businesses. I work with EforAll, a mentorship program aimed at underserved communities, I’m part of the P-Tech program through the St. Vrain Valley School District (in the “Trojan” program, specifically focused on business mentorship for high schoolers), and I’ve judged a lively high school pitch competition in Wiggins, Colorado for a few years in a row. It’s great fun and very inspiring to meet the next generation of movers and shakers. It’s also a good reality check to compensate for the endless “startup culture” quest for “unicorns” and massive AI success to work with people whose dream of success might be turning a profit with a landscaping business or food truck.
The latest group I’ve gotten involved with has been around for decades, yet I’d never heard of them: DECA. The acronym originally stood for Distributive Education Clubs of America. The organization was founded back in 1946 and is an international student group that seeks to prepare emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management through competitions, conferences, and professional development activities. Not exclusively for high schools, DECA targets both high school and college students, with a very specific focus on real-world business skills.
I volunteered to be a judge for the Deca Colorado District 7 annual competition, hosted at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Starting at 7:00am. Who gets up that early? Anyway, District 7 encompasses the following high schools: Brighton, Eaton, Ferguson, Fort Lupton, Greeley Central, Greeley West, Loveland, Mountain View, Riverdale Ridge, Severance, Skyline, Sterling, Thompson Valley, University, and Weld Central High School. That’s about 15,000 students total, of which hundreds showed up for our event at UNC.
I’ve been to UNC Greeley a half-dozen times and it’s a very pleasant campus in the center of an ag-focused city that’s growing by leaps and bounds as Colorado becomes more populous (and as Colorado citizens seek affordable neighborhoods). The campus is a bit older and was originally founded as a college of education to help produce sufficient teachers for the growing Rocky Mountain region. It’s clean, very well maintained, and has a bit of a retro feel. There’s a lot of energy on campus too, with an appealingly high level of diversity.
Note: Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, I’ve blurred the faces in photos of students to respect their privacy.
As a judge, our day started out with breakfast – catered by UNC – along with a briefing from the district leader on how the process would work. The hundreds of students were broken down into individual and team pitches, and each judge (there were some judging pairs) was given a business scenario and judging sheets; the students were also given the same scenario but only had 10-15 minutes to prep before they had to offer up their solution or pitch.
The specific scenarios are confidential, but a typical challenge might be “You have a taco truck and realize after a successful weekend that more people buy your burgers than your tacos. Should you pivot and start selling burgers, make burgers more central to your menu, or eliminate them for brand consistency?” Mine involved a sushi restaurant and it was quite an interesting dilemma for a budding food service entrepreneur and future restauranteur.
Judges were herded into the various rooms at the UNC Student Center, each assigned a table and given a specific login to the digital judging software. My desk looked like this:
Students were expected to dress in appropriate business wear that they might wear to a job interview, and a few were apparently disqualified for inappropriate wardrobe choices. Disappointing for them, I’m sure.
Each wave of students was moved into a prep room and given their individual scenarios, leaving their friends sitting around, waiting for their own turns to roll around:
Each judge was given a spreadsheet printout that listed all of the students who would be pitching them. I had eight, all of whom would address the same scenario and try to impress me with their quick thinking and ingenious problem solving. They all did great, though there was one stand-out who solved the posed dilemma in an appropriate and ingenious manner, and one student who was so nervous that I could barely hear her talk. All part of the experience, and the range of solutions — or, in a few cases, non-solutions – were quite intriguing to hear.
This consumed most of a morning and was really quite fun. I’ve told Deca Colorado that I’m definitely up for judging more events and hear that the big state competition is coming up early in 2025 in Colorado Springs. That’s a bit more of a drive from my home in Boulder, so we’ll see about logistics. Overall, highly recommended as an experience for entrepreneurs and business people who want to start giving back to their community.
Learn more about DECA at the national site, and about Deca Colorado at the regional site. Local to District 7? It has its own page on the site too.
