Dani Klemes, web editor-in-chief

Culminating its 2013-2014 competition year, DECA, the global high school and collegiate program that prepares young entrepreneurs for careers in management, finance, marketing and hospitality, is set to host the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) in Atlanta, Ga. from May 3 to May 6.

The conference, as reported by DECA’s official website, hosts “16,000 high school students, advisors, businesspersons and alumni,” most of whom compete in events and a “variety of leadership and career advancing academies.”

According to Beverly DECA president Olivia Koshy, Beverly’s DECA chapter has “one member, [junior Austin Mack], going to compete.”

Mack, who is ranked second place in California, versed himself in the definitive financial vocabulary to prepare for next week’s ICDC.

“I bought a book about financial analysis to learn the basics about accounting,” Mack said. “I also looked at the tests and role plays from the past competitions.”

In order to qualify for the conference, Mack needed to place in the top four in California, which was “much harder than winning in [Southern California] because [Northern California] usually dominates [the Southern California chapters].”

The competition consists of one written exam and two role plays.

With this year as his first time qualifying, Mack plans to hone his strong knowledge of finance and improve his weakness in presenting.

“A lot of other schools put a lot of effort into improving their presentation skills by practicing many role plays. I’m pretty familiar with a lot of accounting concepts so I’m expecting to do better on the written exam,” Mack said.

This year, Beverly brought in two new DECA advisors: ROP teacher and head football coach Charlie Stansbury and ROP teacher and head basketball coach Jarvis Turner. Under their leadership, the team has had multiple successes, but Mack states that Beverly’s program is still growing and improving.

“For our DECA chapter, in general, we’re not as established as many other serious schools which have lots of resources and professionals to prepare the members, but we usually have one or two qualifiers each year,” Mack said.

Though Mack is the only member from Beverly competing in the conference, seniors Evan Rennie, Yaniv Sadka and Kevin Delijani, and juniors Koshy and Charlie Azoulay will represent Beverly in DECA’s National Leadership academies.

“Beverly was invited to attend [the academies] based on our achievements as a chapter this past year, which included earning the THRIVE achievement level, the highest chapter award and goal for all chapters,” Koshy said. “This is the second consecutive year that Beverly has been invited, not only based on competitive ranks but also on our chapter achievements.”

Results of the conference will be reported on Twitter as soon as they are provided.