Hillcrest High School made its presence known at the state FBLA competition as nine students won state titles, one as a double winner and another as a triple state champion.

Junior Dheeraj Vislawath was named champion in networking infrastructures, then teamed up with senior Adharsh Ramarkrishnan and junior Vivaan Rajesh to win coding and programming and with junior Wallace McCarthy to place first in mobile application development. Ramarkrishnan also won the computer problem solving contest.

Other Hillcrest state winners include junior Kevin Yu in accounting II; senior Swetha Iyer in business law; junior Nayantara Nair in help desk; senior Mahika Acharya in insurance and risk management; and sophomore Allen Liang in introduction to information technology. 

“We had almost everyone place in the top 10,” said senior Sofia Moeinvaziri, who served as a state FBLA officer. “We did better than last year, and we were one of the biggest chapters there. We had a lot of students qualify to compete at nationals.”

At the state contest, junior Sara Moeinvaziri was elected as a state officer and will serve in a position for the next school year.

More than 1,000 students, including about 50 from Hillcrest, from 78 schools competed at the state contest. About 30 Huskies will compete at the national FBLA leadership conference June 27-30 in Atlanta.

FBLA, which prepares more than 230,000 members for careers in business, encourages students to become community-minded business leaders in a global society through career preparation and leadership experiences. 

Sofia Moeinvaziri, who joined FBLA at the urging of her older sister, said she has learned a lot during her four years of being involved.

“FBLA definitely has helped with communication; the events I compete in have interviews so being able to think on your feet, has helped with the way I present myself in front of others, which will help in a professional career. Being a state officer, I’ve had to give speeches to large crowds of almost 2,000 people, so it’s taught me a lot about public speaking as well. I’ve also found I have an interest in marketing, so I’ve competed in a lot of events that are related to it and as a state officer, I’ve learned how to advertise and promote FBLA as an organization,” she said.

Hillcrest High’s first-year FBLA adviser David Johnson was pleased how the team competed. 

“It was great for Hillcrest to show the community that we have students who are very intelligent and are working to place in state,” he said. “These students are working on their presentation skills, to be able to stand up in front of strangers and introduce a topic and talk about a topic that they just got five minutes ago. They’re good leaders too. They have self-motivation and gain confidence about their own personal skills.”

State second-place finishers from Hillcrest include junior Ivan Chen, accounting II; junior Anthony Hus, advertising; junior Sang Chun, agribusiness; Acharya, senior Saisha Vankayalapati and senior Aparnaa Narayanan, broadcast journalism; junior Thomas Lu, business calculations; sophomore Brian Wei, sophomore Alex Liu and Liang, computer game and stimulation programming; juniors Vishwa Murugappan and Sang Chun, data analysis; junior Kevin Yu and Chen, e-business; seniors Amber Parker, Sowmya Paritala and Priyanka Mathews, graphic design; Liang, introduction to marketing concepts; Mathews, journalism; Rajesh, Murugappan and Chun, management information systems; and Moeinvaziri and Moeinvaziri, marketing.

Taking third place was Vislawath, computer problem-solving; sophomore Ayush Chandrashekar, junior Aditya Mole and Lu, network design; Hsu, networking infrastructures; senior Campbell Hone, sports and entertainment management; and Ramarkrishnan, senior Kunal Kamtekar and senior Michael Chen, website design.

Fourth-place finishers were Kamtekar, banking and financial systems; Chun, business calculations; Chandrashekar, introduction to parliamentary procedure; and Murugappan, political science.

In fifth place were Chun, accounting II; sophomore Jacklyn Wei, introduction to business communication, introduction to financial math and introduction to business concepts; sophomore Aarav Gore, introduction to FBLA; and Sofia Moeinvaziri, supply chain management.

The sixth-place finishers include Wei, electronic career portfolio; sophomore Nikhil Ghanathe, introduction to marketing concepts and senior Yash Acharya, supply chain management.

Taking seventh place at state was Kamtekar, business law and UX design; freshman Manan Chadda, future business leader; and senior Laura Curtis, organizational leadership.

Rounding out the top 10 are ninth Anushk Agarwal, Paritosh Mahanthi, Liang and Ghanathe, parliamentary procedure, eighth; Moeinvaziri and Moeinvaziri, publication design, eighth; Iyer, human resource management, ninth; Hsu, Vislawath, Lu, international business, ninth; Sofia Moeinvaziri, journalism, 10th; and McCarthy, personal finance, 10th.  λ