After months of preparation and planning out their company, senior ETHOS business, CDR Workwear, landed first place in the Marketing Plan competition at the Virtual Enterprise in Bakersfield.

Seniors London Halverson, Audrey Cuico, Gigi Luby, and Jackie Sturges work on the marketing for CDR Workwear, with the focus on creating sustainable clothing for people in the blue-collar workforce. 

“Our pants are made out of material that helps them last for 10 to 12 months, unlike brands like Carhartt or Wrangler,” Halverson said. “We prioritize making sure that workers in the industry are really getting their money’s worth in their product, and that they don’t have to spend $70 four times a year.”

This group of future entrepreneurs had to organize promotional materials and analyze their target market into one presentation to be presented to a panel of judges. In Bakersfield, the students had to give their oral presentation against 30 other marketing teams across California, and place in the top eight to move on to compete in the Youth Business Summit in New York.

The business summit will take place Apr. 21-23, where these students will be competing against teams all across the country, not just in California.

But not all roads to success are easy, and these students were no exception.

“Jackie actually wasn’t in our original team at first,” Halverson said. “We did the business plan, and then both of our business plans didn’t go through the next round for the competition, so we moved into the marketing plan.”

It was important that this team took the time to perfect their presentation to be as good as it could be, so they would feel confident when presenting to the judges.

“I would say we struggled with sounding a little too serious,” Sturges said. “Like with memorizing and just sounding authentic.”

Congratulations to these young entrepreneurs, as they continue their business plans in New York and hopefully win another title for this Thousand Oaks High School program.