I’m so excited for the 2009 Future Business Leaders of America State Leadership Conference! You probably don’t even know what I’m talking about huh? Well, if you read my bio to the right (or on the about page) you would know that I was a part of a nonprofit, student-run, business organization in high school called Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). FBLA is the premier business organization that is the largest of its kind in the world! 

Well, every year, the California FBLA chapter holds a State Leadership Conference (SLC) in late April – alternatively between the north and the south, respectively at Santa Clara or Irvine. Last year, SLC took place at Irvine (which is in the south in Orange County) and so this year, SLC is going to take place in Santa Clara (which is in the north, near San Francisco). Students from all over California gather together to compete in over 50 different competitive events, network with members and professionals, and develop business and leadership skills through workshops and guest speaker events. 

The organization embraces not only the high school level, but also the college and professional levels with the collegiate division called Phi Beta Lambda (PBL) and the professional division creatively called the Professional Division (PD). So if you read further in my bio, you would know that I am so passionate about the organization that after high school, I joined PBL. PBL is always on the lookout to help FBLA with their conferences and events. Thus, a group of PBL members (including myself) from southern California are going to be making a road trip up to Santa Clara to volunteer at SLC! It is a great opportunity to network and teach the high school students (of course, we can’t forget that they’re our largest base for membership!). So, a bunch of us PBL nerds from CSUF, UCI, and UCR are going to be having a fun road trip this weekend (while we also go have fun in San Francisco!!!)! 

The FBLA State Leadership Conference will be taking place from Thursday April 23 until Sunday April 26 at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara. FBLA-PBL, Inc. (thats the official name of the organization) is just plain awesome! Or what I just learned from watching some Korean variety shows – FBLA-PBL, Inc. is jjang! If you can’t already tell, I’m super excited for this conference! I enjoy going to FBLA conferences and helping out whenever they need me! It’s like going down memory lane (but from a different perspective haha).