Santa Clara University

SANTA CLARA, CA (November 5, 2007) – A team of four Leavey School of Business undergraduates took second place in the International Business College Competition during the 81st World Trade Week in Los Angeles last weekend. 

Santa Clara University seniors John Burke, Patrick Flanagan, Scott Kirk and junior Rob Harding beat out teams from University of Southern California, the University of South Carolina, and Loyola Marymount University. The Santa Clara group finished behind Villanova University, to bring home the $3,000 second prize provided by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, which sponsored the competition held November 1-3 on the Loyola Marymount University campus.

The 2007 event is the first time a Santa Clara University team has participated in the competition, and faculty mentor John Toppel is already planning to field another group next year. “It was a privilege to work with this group of students,” said Toppel, an Executive in Residence for the SCU School of Business undergraduate program. “These are top notch young men who will well represent Santa Clara as they move into their business careers.”

The team members enthusiastically recommend the experience as well. “It was challenging,” said Patrick Flanagan of the 24-hour competition. Flanagan, a senior with a double major in accounting and economics, with a Spanish minor, calls San Diego his hometown, and will be working for Ernst & Young in San Francisco when he graduates next June.

Senior Scott Kirk, from Santa Rosa, who is an accounting major with dual minors in mathematics and Spanish, felt the team’s success “truly reflects the strength of Santa Clara, its culture, and its faculty.” Kirk will work as a technology analyst for Bank of America’s investment banking division in San Francisco after graduation.

Accounting major John Burke of Lake Forest, Illinois, thought the competition helped him move from theory to practice. “The International Business Competition provided a unique opportunity for us to apply the skills we have learned in the classroom to a real-world scenario.” He will work for Ernst & Young in Chicago after graduation in June 2008.

Rob Harding, a junior majoring in accounting, added that the competition helped team members “apply all the skills and techniques we have developed during our time at Santa Clara.” Harding, whose hometown is Livermore, California, will intern with a Big Four accounting firm during the summer of 2008.

On Monday, SCU School of Business Dean Barry Z. Posner congratulated the team and their faculty sponsor, and noted that the SCU School of Business mission emphasizes preparation of students to work in a global economy. “Invitations to events such as the International Business College Competition are evidence that we are fulfilling our mission to prepare men and women to lead in a global business arena. That our team comes away with a prize speaks well of our students and their preparation by our faculty.”