Competing against over 1,600 students from 26 Suffolk County high schools, 82 Deer Park High School students participated in DECA’s Suffolk County Regional Competition at Suffolk County Community College on Jan. 6. A total of 34 competitors from Deer Park received trophies for their performances, and another eight received honorable mention.
Nicholas DiModica and John Santare earned second place in the Financial Services Team event, while Kevin Chang and Kayla Griffin both won third place for Principles of Finance and Marketing Management, respectively.
Other trophy winners included Joewin James for Principles of Business Management; David Batkiewicz for Principles of Finance; Joe Thomas for Principles of Hospitality; Jack Borah for Personal Financial Literacy; Nick Gallo and Andrew Siford for Financial Services Team; Peter Demopoulos and Joe Sanchez for Marketing Communications Team; Samantha Knice and Lexi Paulich for Travel and Tourism Team; Eram Kabir for Accounting Applications; Stephen Lew and Michael Mieses for Automotive Services Marketing; Shamikh Rana for Business Finance; Ashley Ahmad, Kristina Kozakevitch and Lauren Lazarte for Business Services Marketing; Anthony Henkel and Martin Salgado for Food Marketing; Kalvin Guyer and Vincent Verdile for Human Resources Management; Sarah Qasir and Badar Zaman for Marketing Management; Ifrah Afzal and Tajriana Haque for Quick Serve Restaurant Management; Bianca Taipe for Retail Merchandising; and Malique Papailler, Dan Sebok, Travis Teng and Ryan Verdile for Sports and Entertainment Marketing.
Honorable mentions went to Zack Cresciullo for Principles of Hospitality; Glen Hope for Principles of Marketing; Ryan Byrne for Accounting Applications; Chloe Rosenberg, Nicole Tudor and Kate Vassallo for Food Marketing; Parth Shah for Hotel and Lodging Management; and Safinaz Zaman for Quick Serve Restaurant Management.
These achievements earned the high schoolers a chance to participate in the State Career Conference in upstate Rochester in early March, where they will compete against 2,000 of the best business students in the state for a spot at the International Career Development Conference in Nashville, Tennessee at the end of April.
“Despite a record number of Suffolk County DECA members participating in this year’s competition, Deer Park’s students were able to earn an unprecedented number of awards,” said business teacher and DECA adviser Gregory Menig. “It is a credit to the hard work of not only those students, but also their business teachers. Everyone involved should be extremely proud of their accomplishments. I look forward to finding out what they can achieve at the state level of competition.”