Business professionals from the community shared their experiences and activities in the world of business with students during lunch periods last Friday in the large forum room.

Presenters in the business career panel included advisers and directors such as Michael Khalil of Hygieneering Inc., Sheraton-Lisle director of sales and business travel Rowie Zamora, Paul Campbell of Campbell and Associates, and Amber Pullen of Alcatel-Lucent.

“Mr. Khalil was a former student of mine that I’ve been in contact with, and Mr. Campbell and Ms. Zamora are part of the Junior Achievement, so I, as the organizer of the event, reached out to Junior Achievement, and Junior Achievement reached out to [Campbell and Zamora], and they accepted,” guidance counselor Tom Daugherty said.

Junior Achievement is a non-profit organization that talks about economics to children from kindergarten to high school. The three speakers also talked about networking, necessary skills to excel, and most importantly, what they do in their daily lives.

Khalil gave advice to students on how to explore and get started in a business career. “Chamber of Commerce events, I think will help a lot, just because it’s people within the community that are all working towards one goal, and that’s creating a better community, and helping other businesses,” Khalil said. Chamber of Commerce events are associations that teach people about business and economics.

Senior Arjun Nair is now aware of the vast career paths he has for the future, even as a senior. “I think the part that stuck with me the most, was the fact that most of the people [that] were there presenting to us had completely different ideas with what they wanted to do in high school, [instead of] what they were actually doing now,” Nair said.

By Prashant Shankar

Photo by Jack Heerhold