On Friday, Feb. 28, the final awards for the undergraduate club case competition were announced and distributed, with the female duo representing Reach Out winning first place. Jazmine Hall and Shelby Coghill each received $100, with $1,800 going directly to the organization.

Second place was awarded to the group representing Enactus. Members Alex Capecci and Christin Gardiner were awarded $75 each with $850 going to their group. The third team was from the American Marketing Association. It took third place, winning $500 for its club. This team was composed of Carrie Sheaffer, Ryan Wells and Josh Rudley. The first team from the same club won fourth place. It was composed of Ryan Sexton, Maria Bush, Shelby Stachel and Ryan Boline. The fifth, and final finalist place was awarded to a group from the Financial Management Association. Nathan Sorresso, Jessica Gebauer and Sherman Harris were the members representing the club.

The competition began on Feb. 11 with 13 teams attending a kick-off meeting with Target. Eleven days later, the first round began with representatives from Target briefing the teams about their company and the case study that would be used for the rest of the month during the competition. The teams had until 5 p.m. that day to create a PowerPoint presentation and a one-page executive summary.

They were judged on the timeliness, degree of realism and thoroughness of their research as well as each group’s oral skills in presenting and answering questions as well as their presentations.

The next day, the field was cut down to nine teams, with each team again presenting its PowerPoints.

The final event began with 15-minute presentations from each of the five finalist clubs, followed by a question and answer period, after which the judges deliberated, and then chose the winners: Hall and Coghill, who were both excited to win such a large prize for their organization.

After the winners were announced, representatives from Target discussed job opportunities with many of the finalists, not just the winners.

“As you can see many of the students are now being recruited by Target,” said Career Center director Victoria Kerr Buchbauer, highlighting the benefits of the case competition.

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