Penn Wood wins in Boeing business competition
LANSDOWNE » Penn Wood High School students flew away with the winning business proposal at a regional competition created by Boeing.
The six-member team comprised of juniors and students claimed first place last week in the Boeing Philadelphia Business Proposal Competition, beating 24 other high schools in a competition that considered the financial and infrastructure opportunities in a potential multi-billion dollar venture between the world’s largest aerospace company and India.
Participating high schools were to create a written proposal addressing the following question: “Should Boeing sell 100 V-22 aircrafts to India at a value of $7 billion? Make sure to address Industrial Participation (usually an infrastructure project that would benefit India) and make it financially beneficial to both parties.”
Penn Wood’s five-page proposal on why Boeing should sell the V-22 aircrafts to the Asian subcontinent was one of eight that moved forward from the initial 25 that were submitted. A ten-minute presentation was given by the eight qualifying schools before a panel of judges at Boeing’s Ridley plant last week. For their winning proposal, each student received certificates of merit and $300 Amazon gift cards.
The winning Patriots for Penn Wood were Adewunmi Ade-Oyetayo, Anne Bantawan, Airrah Dicen, John Kpankpa, Danny Nguyen and Gabriel Peter. Penn Wood physics teacher Benny Joseph and English teacher Sue Norton serves as team advisors with Boeing’s Sean Bearman, Jeffrey Topp, and Matthew serving as mentors team.
“When they said who won third and second place and I didn’t hear us, I knew we had it,” said Joseph. In his first student-led competition as a teacher, Joseph had known his team always had the winning proposal.
Since the fall the students researched all sorts of areas that could pertain the sale which included finances, justification of analysis, industry overview and implementation strategy. Students said they were confused by the case proposal at first, but eventually worked it out. Having many of the students for class already, Joseph knew what students would work well on the team.
“I chose the students with strong collaborative and leadership skills,” he said. “I was not looking just for intellect, I wanted coordination, respect and understanding.” Waldo to the Admitting she didn’t know much of the aerospace vernacular associated with the proposal, Norton used her skills as an English teacher to bump up the proposal.
“What would I need to sell me?” is how Norton would rationalize deeper thinking on a particular subject area. “You have to know your audience.”
Penn Wood’s win comes as the its school district, William Penn, is thrust into the spotlight as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the commonwealth for lack of necessary funding for a quality education. Knowing the economic disparities between itself and high schools like Haverford and Strath Haven – who also made it to the top eight in the competition – Norton said the school still follows through in competitions without working on a level playing field.
“We compete better by working on a deficit,” she said.
The field of eight was dominated by almost all Delaware County high schools. Academy Park claimed second place with Strath Haven taking third. Chichester, Haverford, Interboro and Sun Valley were also in the running. Plymouth Whitemarsh rounded at the participating slate of finalists.