On February 22 and 23, hundreds of Hawaii middle and high school students gathered at the Hawaii Convention Center for the annual Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) Conference. Each year students compete in various competitions in the business, culinary, industrial arts, hospitality, medical, and automotive fields. The winners of these events travel to the mainland to compete on a national level. This year, Servco helped sponsor the conference.
Servco Human Resources’ Gene Murata has been involved with judging the DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) Marketing competition at the CTSO Conference for over thirty years. This year, Human Resources Recruiter Maxine Duropan also participated as a judge. In addition, another longtime DECA supporter, Marketing’s Paul Lam, once again assisted as a judge. In the marketing competition, students are given ten minutes to read a marketing scenario and then must come up with a marketing plan to present to the judges. Students have just ten minutes to present their ideas in a role play situation with the judges playing the role of company owners. In addition, students must also take a written exam for the marketing area they are competing in. The student that has the highest combined written and marketing role play scenario scores is the winner of the competition.
Servco also got involved this year with the sponsorship of the winner of the Skills USA Hawaii Automotive Competition at the CTSO Conference. Students competed in hands-on problem-solving diagnostic situations at Leeward Community College’s automotive department. The winners were announced at the CTSO Conference on February 23. This year’s winner is Kyle Dela Cruz from Waiakea High School in Hilo. Servco donated $500 to assist Kyle with his expenses in getting to the national competition. Congratulations to Kyle and his Waiakea High School instructor Robert Kobayashi as they represent Hawaii.