FAMU claims first place at Black MBA confab

MBA candidates Dominique Drake, 22, left, and Davida Jones, 23, of Florida A&M look over materials at the Target booth at the career fair of the National Black MBA Association's 29th annual conference. In all, some 11,000 folks attended the conference.

For the first time a team of FAMU MBA candidates entered the business case-study competition at the National Black MBA Conference. The FAMU students, for the firs time, took home first place and the $15,000 in grand prize money.

Sponsored by Chrysler, the case competition will featured 30 teams from schools across the nation -- each given the same business case to solve and then present in 20 minutes to judges in a preliminary round. The case study is built around a real business issue that requires the team to resolve several open-ended problems. The six teams that made it past the preliminary round present again to compete for the grand prize of $15,000.

This year's case competition covered a topic that's on the front burner for most industries and one the FAMU team admits it didn't know much about: health-care benefits for employees. But the three students -- two of whom have made it to national levels in similar case competitions -- didn't let that scare them.

"I took it as a challenge, not as much intimidating, but more so, `Here's a new topic for you, Dominique,' " said Dominique Drake, 22, who served as the FAMU team leader. "And so I challenged myself to do better and to learn and to do what I need to do."

The case challenged students to develop a solution to Chrysler's need for lower health-care costs, specifically involving its union employees. According to the company, its contract with the union expires today and executives are looking to the MBA teams to give them new ideas for the pressing problem.

Drake said the first step for the team, which also included Davida Jones, 23, was researching the health-care industry and talking to health-care professionals.

"Once we had a feel for what the trend was, once we knew what a problem proposal could be, we came up with alternative proposals," Drake said. "And then from there, our final recommendation."

The FAMU fifth-year professional MBA students are competed to learn as well as to make a strong name for their school. They got a taste of such opportunities last year, when they attended the National Black MBA Association's conference in Atlanta.

FAMU made its way through the preliminary rounds and defeated teams from Columbia, U of Chicago, Michigan State, Penn State and Purdue to capture first place.