La Sierra University Enactus aims for world cup, celebrates 25 years of impact and connections

The overture came unexpectedly during Enactus’ regionals in Anaheim this April where La Sierra’s team was among four chosen from western states for the impact of their business plans and economic empowerment projects aiding local and overseas communities.

A Walmart official called five students on stage and announced the offers. Four hailed from La Sierra University – Rabbady, Xavier Watson, Joshua Montang and Andrew Parker. The fifth was from the University of La Verne.

“I was very surprised,” said Rabbady who is working on a pair of La Sierra MBAs in law, policy and ethics and in international business principles. “I came to the regional competition to simply check out the competition and prepare for nationals. I did not expect to interview, let alone get an offer.”

The intern/assistant management position Rabbady accepted at a Walmart store in Brea, Calif. is presently consuming his summer and prepping him for a potential move up the corporate ladder. Meanwhile, he and his teammates are preparing for the pinnacle Enactus competition of the year, the world cup.

Rabbady’s amazement at the job offer was morphed by elation a few weeks later when La Sierra University Enactus won the national championship on May 17 in St. Louis, Mo. It was the team’s seventh national title in its 25-year history, an unprecedented feat. They will represent the United States against 35 other global teams during world cup competitions in Toronto Sept. 28 – 30, with sights set on nabbing the team’s third international trophy.

The La Sierra team won its first world cup event in Amsterdam in 2002 and a second in 2007 in New York City. The 2007 win brought La Sierra a level of fame with a team photo printed on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes, an honor typically reserved for star athletes and other high achievers. The accomplishments signal the indelible impact the La Sierra team has made over the years on one of the world’s largest international business competitions for students.

Enactus, an international nonprofit based in Springfield, Mo., provides regional, national and world cup economic empowerment competitions for more than 69,000 students and 1,710 universities in 36 countries. It was founded in 1975 as Students in Free Enterprise, or SIFE. Student teams, after months of planning, project work and competition prep, give multi-media, annual reports in tiered competitive rounds on their teams’ efforts to bring about economic liberation, sustainability, and progress through entrepreneurial action. The winners receive cash prizes for use with team projects which range widely and economically impact populations around the globe.

Current Enactus projects by various teams include a soap-making enterprise for termed-out foster youth, a low-smoke cooking stove for Indian villagers, and a mobile grocery store for low-income communities, a La Sierra project.

Enactus has more than 400 corporate sponsors. Panels of executives from such powerhouses as Walmart, KPMG, Coca-Cola, 3M and Johnson & Johnson act as competition judges. As such, the competitions also serve as a recruiting opportunity, linking bright, ambitious students with potential corporate employers who have a chance to observe the students in action.

Approximately 20 La Sierra Enactus team members, led by a six-member presentation team, competed May 15-17 against 118 universities and colleges from around the United States. During the final round, La Sierra took first place for its projects and 17-minute, multi-media presentation. Second place went to John Brown University in Arkansas, third place to Flagler College in Florida, and fourth place to Washington state’s Heritage University. 

“It was as if time slowed down and my entire time with the Enactus team flashed before my eyes,” said presentation team member and senior business management major Watson, one of the Walmart job offer recipients. “In that very moment all the late nights and early mornings, all of the stress, all of the hard work turned into an overwhelming sense of triumph.”

He is mentoring Enactus team members as an executive leadership consultant and sharpening his presentation skills in preparation for the world cup in Toronto.

Rabbady’s prep duties include scouting other teams and determining competitive advantage. In the meantime, he is considering his future, including opportunities through his Walmart job where his summer duties include overseeing store associates, reading through reports, recalls, and messages from corporate offices, interviewing job and promotion candidates, and working with asset protection to counteract fraudulent activity. He has the option of returning to work as an assistant manager or co-manager with a fast-track to regional manager following his graduation from La Sierra in 2017.

“I have law school as an option, federal government options, and business opportunities in the corporate world,” said Rabbady. “I have yet to reach a decision, but one thing is certain, I am happy with how much I have grown since beginning La Sierra in 2011.”

La Sierra's first-place win this year includes a $10,000 prize for use with the team's projects. Additionally, John Razzouk, La Sierra’s Sam Walton Faculty Fellow and team mentor was named Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow of the Year.

The 2015-2016 team projects include:

• Mobile Fresh, a partner project with Family Service Association in Riverside in which a renovated commuter bus functions as a mobile grocery store bringing reduced-rate fresh produce and dry goods to areas with few supermarkets. The team, which manages marketing and educational programming for the project, took the Mobile Fresh bus to 40 locations throughout the Riverside area. They achieved 1,800 customer transactions per month this school year with 3,824 people directly impacted. Customers saved up to 50 percent on food costs.

• Enactus Field Station, Denkanikottai, India, where an Enactus Cow Bank micro-lending program started in 2013 has more than doubled the income of participating families who receive milk cows on loan from the team. The families sell milk to wholesalers, repay the loan and ultimately buy the cow while earning significantly higher income. The team has purchased and loaned 117 cows thus far. Cow Bank entrepreneurs have invested $154,740 into the local economy and none have defaulted on their loans. The field station last November also established a new micro-lending program involving sewing machines and a sewing school. Thirteen young women completed the program in June, ready to earn additional income with their new skills. 

Setting standards

The La Sierra Enactus team, based out of the university’s Zapara School of Business, celebrates a long-standing reputation for impactful projects as well as professional, groundbreaking presentations that bring other school teams crowding into their competition presentations to glean tips.

It wasn’t always this way. Like all fledgling endeavors, the first Enactus team was inspired, but faced challenges.

John Thomas, dean of the business school, built the first team in 1991 when he was an economics professor. He has remained a driver of its organization and performance over the years. Thomas tapped history major George Bryson as the team’s first president. 

“For that first year, my objective was to find ways to integrate SIFE into the school,” said Bryson, founder and owner of Wild Poppy beverage company in Los Angeles. “We launched a recycling project and placed green bins all over campus with SIFE written on them to get our name out. It was fairly loosely coordinated, but we brought it all together at the end of the year into our presentation at the regional and national competitions.”

The greatest challenges, said Bryson, involved “finding the threads to hold our work together and getting our name out there on campus. In order for the work to continue we needed the support of the school. We accomplished this through our presentation for the competitions to demonstrate the greater purpose in our projects. Coming back with some trophies helped a great deal too. The momentum picked up from there and the next year’s team took the learnings from that first year and continued to build,” Bryson said.

The team won the regional competition the first couple of years, but were trounced at nationals. The latter event, until the creation of a world cup competition in 2000, welcomed teams from other countries, broadening the field. Discouraged by their lackluster performance, the 1993 team sat on the steps of the Hallmark Visitor’s Center in Kansas City, Mo. A Walmart executive stopped to talk to them.

“He told us the story of Sam Walton [Walmart founder], and asked how many hours we put into our prep,” said Thomas. 

The next day after returning to campus, the team decided to revolutionize its presentation routine and trade an acetate projector for computer technology. 

A young, 16-year-old college student named Andy Wongworawat said he could build a first computer for the team. “I put the whole trust of the team in that 16-year-old kid,” said Thomas. “It was the best computer we ever put together.” Wongworawat is now a plastic surgeon. 

During competitions that school year, the team put on the first multi-media presentation given in SIFE events, and opened with a Star Trek theme. “It completely blew the judges’ minds,” said Thomas. From that point onward, the team would continually raise the bar in its competition presentations through technological advancement and professional demeanor.

As the championship runners up were announced in Kansas City in 1994, the La Sierra students held hands. The Walmart executive who had given them the pep talk sat with them. When the La Sierra team was announced national champion, “There was a massive eruption in the crowd,” said Thomas. “We had just upset Lubbock, the number one ranked team.” 

The team went on to win the national championship in 1995, 1996 and 1997, setting a record for consecutive wins. Their work caught the attention of Seventh-day Adventist entrepreneur and philanthropist Tom Zapara and his wife, Vi. That connection led to regular donations by the Zaparas to the SIFE team, and eventually the seed money for the new School of Business building that opened in 2013.

“My challenge to students is always the same, to do something extraordinary,” Thomas said.

Mike Cashman, business development director for Enactus USA has followed the La Sierra team’s progress since its inception. While the first presentations weren’t very impressive, he said, “the next year they blew the doors off.”

“La Sierra and Johnny Thomas raised the bar for all other Enactus teams back in the early 1990s,” Cashman added. “They started sharing best practices and mentoring other teams.”

La Sierra also set standards with the reach and type of economic empowerment and entrepreneurial projects the teams pursued, according to Cashman. He remembered a La Sierra project called Connect Ethiopia in which the team supplied refurbished computers to communities in Ethiopia and taught people how to use them. The team also became involved with the local business community “and that’s another thing they taught other schools,” said Cashman.

The La Sierra team’s string of four national championship wins brought students numerous connections with the corporate world, and an invitation to John Thomas to meet with top leaders of the Walmart corporation at their headquarters where they asked him how he builds a championship team. “I said, ‘you hire the best you can find and let the best tell you what to do,’” Thomas said. “We’ve taken risks, the students have taken risks, and those that have done well have taken it to the next level.”

The team's efforts have been guided over the years by a bevy of business school faculty fellows, including Heather Miller, graduate advisor and Executive Education program leader. She helped steer the team between 1999 - 2009, a span that included the team's two world cups. She was inducted into the Enactus/SIFE Hall of Fame in 2009 for her leadership. Jodi Cahill, the business school's community and international relations director and also a leader of Executive Education helped guide the team between 2004-09.

Lifechanging impact

The impact of Enactus projects ripples throughout entire communities, changing many lives. Enactus student team members are transformed as well.

Nicholas Feldkamp, a 2015 Master of Business Administration graduate and last year’s Enactus team president led the squad to a second place finish at nationals in April 2015. “It was an incredible experience, a life-changing moment,” said Feldkamp. 

He previously earned two bachelor’s degrees from the business school in 2013 and joined the team as a freshman. He became part of a family where he had to make big decisions. “It has had a huge impact. It really transformed me. My personal courage went through the roof, and I’ve gained the best friendships,” he said.

Accounting major and June graduate Sharina Carruthers joined Enactus during her freshman year where she functioned as chief financial officer for the team’s anti-bullying program. Three years later she became vice president of all team projects, and a member of the national championship-winning team. Following an audition process, she was selected this past school year to serve as one of six presentation team members who were instrumental in leading the team to its seventh national title. Competition prep involved upwards of 10 hours per week of practice.

“When the announcement came that we were national champions, I cried like a baby. The whole team worked together to get to that moment,” Carruthers said in an interview for La Sierra’s U-Life magazine. This summer she is working as a customer development analyst at Johnson & Johnson, a connection forged through her Enactus involvement. “Working with Enactus, I learned the value of recognizing the achievements of your teammates,” she said.

Pre-med and finance major Tiffani Brown-Brent has been an Enactus team member since 2013. As an official team member, a status achieved after contributing the requisite hours of service as a general member, Brown-Brent’s responsibilities have included creating a website and social media content, helping organize, brainstorm, and execute fundraising efforts, helping develop and implement marketing tactics as well as new project/ component project ideas. 

This coming year as a La Sierra senior, she will function as a vice president for the team. She will travel to Toronto in September for the world cup. Her involvement in Enactus has changed her self-perception.

“Prior to Enactus I had not played a sport or been on a team, so that dynamic was new to me. I have grown to really enjoy it,” Brown-Brent said. “I am a very independent person, not a leader or a follower, so when I was picked to be leadership on the team this year I was surprised. I had never seen myself as a leader.”

Beyond individual and community impact, the most successful teams leave a legacy that guide future teams’ vision and purpose.

Razzouk, program manager at the business school, led the 2006-07 team to its national and international championships while a psychology major and criminal justice minor. He described the teams’ strategy which extended beyond the goal of winning a trophy.

“We aimed to permanently instill in the team the idea that we should daily aim to serve as a representation of what students everywhere are capable of,” said Razzouk. “There is a line at the end of that [presentation] video that has now been used in the presentation scripts of several of our La Sierra [teams] that followed ‘When you see what a few students from La Sierra University can do, just imagine what is possible for students all over the world.’ And the commitment to this idea led the team to revise its mission statement in 2011 to state, ‘We are students creating value, making a difference, and proving the possible.’”

Key projects in 2006-07 included Build-a-Village carried out in collaboration with the organization Homes for Sudan which aims to rebuild burned villages in Darfur, Sudan. The La Sierra team created economic development plans for village-based economies and built a model village on the La Sierra campus to demonstrate to potential donors and business partners the strength and sustainability of the building materials. 

The team also generated $50,000 from sales of SIFE-branded bottled water to support Project Kalaala in Ethiopia, a multi-year project where village women were taught sewing skills and aided in the creation of a business venture to make and sell medical scrubs. The project served as a pre-cursor to the current India Field Station and its cow bank program.

“We committed ourselves to operate as a fully-functioning non-profit run by students instead of just as a student club or organization. It led us to take on ambitious projects,” Razzouk said.

In addition to strengthening his own abilities and confidence and impacting the lives of others, Watson experienced yet another effect from his Enactus experience – the deepening of his faith in God. 

“There is nothing too hard for God and there is no aspect of your life God doesn't want to be involved in,” said Watson. “When I see the impact we are having in our community and around the world, I am confident that this is the work of God's children. We are having a real impact that goes far beyond any competition.”

 (Watch a video of the La Sierra team in their Enactus National Expo final round presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SLyeuqp2UU)