Mount Union Business Students Take Top Two Spots in Pittsburgh Business Competition
April 02, 2019PITTSBURGH, Pennsyvania - Two teams of University of Mount Union students took home top honors this year at the Tau Pi Phi Honor society case competition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The team of Willis Brienza ’21, a marketing and sport business double major of Alliance, Ohio, and Riley Gannon ’20, an international business and economics and marketing double major of North Ridgville, Ohio, took the top spot.
Nathan Obourn ’20, a sport business major of Uniontown, Ohio, and Jake Geiger ’19, a finance and German double major of Alliance, Ohio, finished in second place. This is the most successful year that Mount Union students have had at this case competition.
Willis Brienza and Riley Gannon, who earned first place.
Nathan Oburn and Jake Geiger, who earned second place.
Student at the Case Competition (l-r): Max Feller, marketing and management double major; Nathan Obourn, marketing and sport business double major; Jake Geiger, finance and German double major; Willis Brienza, marketing and sport business double major; Riley Gannon, marketing and international business and economics double major; Eliza Days, marketing and human resource management double major
Each day of the case competition required students to read a case, create an executive summary, and prepare a visual aid that resolved and answered the questions and problems of the case within a limited amount of time.
“I was really nervous for the competition originally, but I was paired with a veteran student and we went in with confidence and executed on all of our assignments really well,” said Brienza. “This gave me a lot of confidence for our upcoming competition in New Orleans for the American Marketing Association.”
The presentations consist of a fifteen-minute period for the presentation and are followed by a question and answer session from the judges of the competition.
Tau Pi Phi is an honor society to recognize outstanding students who study business or economics. The annual case competition was hosted at Juniata College in Pittsburgh. This year, the two-day case competition included a variety of 12 two and three-person teams from Mount Union, Juniata, Capital, Heidelberg and Marietta. In total, six students from the University of Mount Union attended the event.