by Hannah Nicholson, staff writer
Pennsylvania Business Week winners have been announced, and Lifted, under the leadership of CEO Claudia Fetzner, won top company. Their efforts were evaluated in their Marketing and Advertising presentations, the RONA competition, and the trade show. The top company winners received $100 each.
ACES (Americans for Competitive Enterprise System, Inc.) brings Pennsylvania Business Week to Saegertown High School in hopes that sophomores can get a sense of real business situations.
For this year’s competition, there were two products, shoes and clocks, with three companies in each category. The shoe companies were Sole Strong, Lifted, and Flexx. Sophomores came up with interesting features for the shoes which included replaceable soles, shoes with springs in them, and massaging shoes.
In the clock categories, the companies were Clock It, Paradox, and Tick Tock Technologies. Paradox was marketing for an older audience, so they had a medical aspect to their clocks that measured heartbeat and alerted a hospital if there were significant changes in heartbeat speed. Clock It took a different route, however, and marketed a clock for appliances.
The Marketing and Advertising presentations are based around how they sold their products and how well their finances did based on their marketing techniques. The sophomores made posters, speeches, and commercials to present to judges. One of the aspects they included in their presentations were the RONA (Return on Net Assets) numbers. This evaluates the company’s finances over 11 business quarters. By the end of the eleventh quarter, Lifted and Paradox were in first place in their respective industries.
On Friday, winners were announced in RONA, advertising and marketing, stockholders, and the trade show. Paradox won both RONA and stockholders, Sole Strong won advertising and marketing, and Flexx won the trade show aspect.
CEO of Lifted, Claudia Fetzner did not expect to win, but said, “We were confident in what we did. We really worked well together, and everyone did their job.”
Member of Lifted included: Efrian Vega-Vega, Charlie Johnston, Claudia Fetzner, Will Phelan, John Kozlowski, James Hammond, Austin Bedow, Brode Burger, Cheyenne Manross, Hillary Twiford, Stephanie Polach, Sierra Miller, Ben Shelenburger, Jalisa Norr, and Brendan Mahoney.