ACU’s Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization won first place for overall outstanding chapter and best chapter business at a national conference Friday in Kansas City, Missouri, where they competed against 250 chapters from schools across the country.
“The national conference is a chance for all those schools to get together,” said CEO President Rudy Garza, senior marketing major from Corpus Christi. “There’s the consumer end of the conference, where you go and listen to lessons and do workshops and hear keynote speakers, and then there’s the competitive aspect of it, where the schools that feel like they can compete for a variety of awards will apply for them and then compete based on that.”
The best chapter is graded based on the impact it has on campus, the quality of the chapter business and the content and networking opportunities they offer students, as well as other extraneous factors like service and philanthropy efforts, which is something ACU’s chapter is big on, Garza said. Last year, ACU placed second for overall outstanding chapter.
“I guess from a simple standpoint they look at all the things that your collegiate entrepreneurship organization does and whoever has the best accumulation of awesome things gets the title,” Garza said.
Six ACU students attended the conference and got the chance to hear from important entrepreneurs, including the founder of Priceline, one of the top rated companies in the world.
“I’ve been really proud to serve as president of CEO and kind of give back to the university in a small way by winning the award,” Garza said. “I hope that it serves as an affirmation that we have exciting and innovative programs.”
Gorgi Hannah said CEO strives to inspire others to pursue their entrepreneurship goals and passions by bringing in different entrepreneurs from all over the country to speak to students about the necessary skills and opportunities to become an entrepreneur.
“We have students from all majors, from biochem to engineering to marketing to international business,” Hannah, junior accounting major from Kansas City, Missouri, said. “CEO’s purpose is to offer entrepreneurship advice to all majors.”
