Press Release

Metropolitan Education District 760 Hillsdale Ave San Jose, CA 95136 March 11, 2010

Contact: Michelle Alaimo Communication Specialist (408) 723-6464 malaimo@metroed.net

CCOC Student Places in Top Three at Rotary Enterprise Leadership Conference

Four Central County Occupational Center (CCOC) students were selected out of a pool of nearly 200 applications to attend this year’s Enterprise Leadership Conference (ELC), held March 3 to 5 at Asilomar in Pacific Grove.

The CCOC students were among 96 area high school students chosen to attend this year's ELC conference sponsored by the San Jose and Los Gatos Rotary Clubs. At the three day, all expense paid conference, students worked in teams of eight to create a virtual business. CCOC Culinary Arts and Leigh High School student, Bria Lynn Marquez's team placed second for their presentation on the virtual product they created called "CalcHealth" which would measure a person’s blood sugar, obesity, and count calories.

"The ELC Camp sets you up for the future," Marquez said. "I wanted to learn the whole picture when it comes to business and that is what I learned at this camp." Marquez said she hopes to one day own and operate her own restaurant. She said she plans to study both business and culinary arts so that she fully understands how to run a restaurant and how all the business functions interact with each other.

The ELC Conference included team building activities and networking with business executives that the students normally would not have had a chance to meet or interact with. Other attendees included CCOC Auto Body Repair and Gunderson High School student, Christina Rivas; CCOC Interior Design and Independence High School student, Kimberly Nguyen; and CCOC Video Production and Lincoln High School student Gimo Tolentino.

Rivas, who hopes to operate her own auto body shop someday, said she learned a lot about teamwork and how everyone needs to work together for a business to succeed.

CCOC, a unit of MetroED, is open to high school juniors and seniors from six high school districts: Campbell Union High School District, East Side Union High School District; Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District; Milpitas Unified School District; San Jose Unified School District; and the Santa Clara Unified School District.

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MetroED is the largest career-oriented educational organization in Santa Clara County, comprised of high school and adult occupational, academic and community programs.

MetroED annually provides 31,000 diverse students with the skills to help them be productive, income-earning and tax-paying contributors to Silicon Valley.