Community member and local realtor Wendy Ahmad has committed to sponsor travels for Grand Oaks DECA student Tyler Sao to travel to and attend the International Career Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia at the end of April.
Grand Oaks High School sophomore Tyler Sao was announced the first place winner of the Adobe Personal Branding Challenge on Jan. 23. Because of this accomplishment, Tyler will have the opportunity to travel to Atlanta to attend the international conference, which includes multiple days of the Thrive Academy, where he will get to learn more about DECA and business, branding and marketing. Tyler will also be formally awarded the first DECA Glass Award in Grand Oaks History for his accomplishments.
”I'm doing the Adobe personal branding challenge, which is basically a competition where I design my own personal brand to stand out from other competitors,” Tyler said.
The DECA program provides high school students opportunities to compete in a variety of real-world business based competitions. Tyler’s achievement in January was for a challenge related to creating a personal brand for himself along with a website.
“Originally, my friend told me that I should compete in DECA, and I was a bit busy at the time,” Tyler said. “I found that corporate challenges were best suited for me this year. So I designed my own website, which I thought fit best with my artistic abilities.”
DECA adviser and Grand Oaks Teacher of the Year Melissa Pepper is overjoyed with Tyler’s success in the DECA program and shares all her thanks and gratitude to Ahmad for the passion she has for empowering students to achieve their goals.
“Grand Oaks is getting our 1st glass at DECA, thanks to Tyler,” Pepper said, “and he gets to go there in person, thanks to Ms. Wendy and everything she's done for us, for DECA, and for our kids.”
Ahmad, who previously donated to the campus to help create an eSports lab for the growing program, is sponsoring Tyler to get to the competition. Ahmad is a strong advocate for the Grizzly community and often supports sports and organizations within the community.
“I know it sounds cliche,” Ahmad said, “but I do believe that children are the future, and I can help, and I love to do that.”