The week of August 22-26 was an exciting one, as the SBTDC at UNCW partnered with the Cape Fear Manufacturing Partnership (CFMP) and the UNCW Cameron School of Business to provide a student engagement opportunity for an executive MBA team comprised of 6 students from UNCW and University of Surrey in the UK. CFMP was formed by a group of executives from various manufacturers in the region to raise awareness of careers in the manufacturing sector as a viable path for students coming out of high school and assessing their options for education and/or entering the workforce.
The project scope the executive MBA team addressed included marketing strategies for CFMP to utilize to engage with multiple groups: a) students as early as late elementary school/middle school through high school, b) their parents and other spheres of influence, and c) schools and their CTE programs. The scope also included providing a set of KPI’s to allow the partnership to benchmark and measure progress of their efforts. The week culminated on Friday afternoon when the team presented their report and recommendations to the 6 members of the CFMP steering committee who were in attendance along with faculty and staff from the UNCW Cameron School of Business and SBTDC counselors.
The presentation was extremely well done and each of the students contributed significantly to the feedback and recommendations. The feedback from members of the CFMP, faculty, and staff was all very positive. Jim Flock with CFMP commented, “I want to thank you and your team for the fine job they did on the project for the Cape Fear Manufacturing Partnership. Your candidates performed very well, especially considering the compressed schedule, and, perhaps, a rather vague concept. The presentation they made and the suggestions they proposed will provide us with a framework to guide our actions going forward. I look forward to helping implement these strategies and moving our agenda to the next steps.”
Special thanks to the Cape Fear Manufacturing Partnership and Jim Flock for partnering to provide this significant student enrichment opportunity and to Dr. Bekki Guidice (UNCW Professor and Director of the Executive MBA Program) for her leadership and coordination.