15 members of Huron’s Business Professionals of America advance to Nationals

Jonathan Cook

States winners in Business Professional of America (BPA) will advance to compete at Nationals, hosted at the Hilton Anatole hotel in Dallas, TX.

Daniel Lee, Staff Writer

Between March 10 and 13, Huron’s Business Professionals of America (BPA) had their State Leadership Conference at Amway Grand Hotel, Devos Convention Center and Davenport University in Grand Rapids. Twenty students from Huron competed and 15 students qualified for Nationals in May with additional five students through virtual event competitions held last month. 

Huron had six first place winners including senior Aarnav Unadkat, junior Armaan Kamat, junior Tony Varkey, junior Jerry Yang, junior Krystain Kastelnik and junior Varshini Kashyap. Junior and club Vice President Armaan Kamat shared his experience at States. 

“Not only did I have fun competing in my events and hanging out with friends, but it was also nice to be back in an in-person States,” Kamat said. “Last year was online, and it was not as interesting to do everything over video calls. This year, going to the events and doing activities with friends was really nice.” 

Kamat won first place in three of four events he competed in, including “Digital Marketing Concepts,” “Financial Analyst Team,” and “Management, Marketing & Human Resources Concepts.” Kamat recalled his unexpected victory at the state competition. 

“We had prepared our content well but were still not completely fluid in our presentation,” Kamat said. “We practiced well that morning and our final presentation went really smooth with no errors. I was very proud of our team for being able to pull together a great presentation and it was amazing to improve so quickly and ultimately win first place.”