By Elyse Pitkin
Recently, the Burton D. Morgan Center for Integrated Entrepreneurship hosted a dinner at the Welshfield Inn with three Penske Truck Leasing executives and entrepreneurship honors students. The students participated in an elevator speech contest with the prompt, “why should Penske hire you?” and had to include various criteria within their speech.
“The event was great. The Penske executives, Professor Kukurza, and I all had score sheets to grade the students,” said David Strukel, Ph.D., director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Integrated Entrepreneurship. “Every student did very well. The best thing was that while we all agreed on who the top five were, we all thought every student did a great job representing Hiram.”
Three Hiram students were awarded including first-place winner, Zachary Shannon; second-place winner, Reyna Polly; and third-place winner, Jerod Leynes.
“Winning the competition was humbling,” said Shannon, a communication major and entrepreneurship minor at Hiram. “The feeling I got when they said I won was unbelievable. I know I still have a lot to improve on, but this win was a step in the right direction.” Shannon began his elevator speech by discussing his first leadership position as a high school captain of the football team and how that evolved into his time as a college football athlete. “This opportunity helped me grow because I received true experience at what an interview with a big company might feel like. I can make improvements on what I said for future interviews,” he said.
