Glory Days -- PBL

Recently I was reading my local newspaper and I ran across an article that mentioned FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) and PBL (Phi Beta Lambda) had just help their annual state convention/competition. This immediately took me back to my days as a member of PBL at SUU. For those of you unfamiliar with PBL, it is a business club created to help develop college students to become effective and successful business leaders.

At SUU, the PBL experience was more than just learning business, it was a full collegiate experience. Under the tutelage of the late Doris Williamson, this club helped us to become involved on campus life as well as become involved within the local community. Each year we would spend hours helping with mailings for the Utah Shakespearean Festival, we held a food drive at Thanksgiving to help those in need. We participated in the Sub-for-Santa program. We sponsored and held the annual Business Person of the year banquet. This allowed us to meet with local business members, interview them and find out how they became involved in their business and what their future goals were. Each fall we attended a conference. At this conference senior students were encouraged to bring their resume and meet with real HR personnel from the business industry. Despite these being "Mock Interviews" I know of several students who were offered jobs after their interview.

During the spring quarter we would compete against students from the other colleges and universities in the state. Competitions and testing were in all areas of business including: accounting, business writing, economics, ethics, business law, marketing, interviewing, and public speaking. Additionally each chapter could submit a yearly history and there was a competition for Outstanding Chapter in the State, our chapter always fared well in this competition.

SUU representation at 1995 National Competition in Orlando Florida

If you placed in the top 10 you could compete at the National Leadership Conference. The national sites rotated through such places as Anaheim, Orlando, and Washington DC. I was lucky enough to be able to attend two of these conferences, Anaheim and Orlando. This was a great experience as we were allowed to meet and compete against other students going into business from all across the United States. More importantly, it was a valuable opportunity to begin networking with other future business professionals. In addition to the conference, we always planned time to visit local attractions; Disneyland, Epcot, or whatever else happened to be nearby. These trips were a great time and Doris always knew the best places to go for dinner.

PBL was an outstanding experience for me at SUU. I know much of my fondness of this experience is due to Doris and her extreme devotion to the students. She always went to whatever level necessary to help us reach our full potential.

"Glory Days" is a recurring post by Clinton Painter, a 1996 alumnus with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting.