Nick Pook

UW-Whitewater Collegiate DECA excelled at the 2025 Wisconsin Collegiate DECA State Career Development Conference.

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater students have had continuous successes in business and sales competitions.

Caden Boehnen, a junior, is an entrepreneurship and finance double major from McFarland. Boehnen’s goal is to own a business, and he credits this passion for his choice in major. Boehnen has achieved notable success in numerous sales competitions. Whitewater staff within the College of Business and Economics are a large part of his success story.

“My DECA advisor, Frank Lanko, has helped me tremendously throughout my time at UW-W,” Boehnen said. “Frank puts in countless hours of his own time, helping assist our chapter with volunteering, campus and community involvement, as well as competition preparation. I would not be as involved in DECA as I am without Frank and I am beyond thankful for his support and dedication.”

DECA is an on-campus organization that contributes to the professional development of students and helps develop their skills through competition. Their goals are to help build student’s resumes, provide leadership and networking opportunities, and build a social community for likeminded students on campus.

With the help of the DECA, Boehnen was able to compete and win first place at the International Conference for DECA in San Francisco in April 2025 for sales. He also placed first and second overall in two other events during the 2025 fall semester.

In these competitions, Boehnen had to overcome many challenges.

“One of the biggest challenges I had was overcoming the nerves of presenting in front of a judge, and making sure that I didn’t let those nerves get in the way of what I was presenting.” Boehnen said. “One of the biggest things that helped me with this was preparing for my presentation by practicing it multiple times, so I had a good routine to get into once I started to present in front of the judge.”

The professional sales competition offered a unique prompt and its open-ended nature allowed Boehnen to excel.

“You are tasked with choosing any real-life product or service that is able to be sold to a business or consumer and then creating a sales pitch presentation,” Boehnen said. “One challenge for me was choosing the product or service that I wanted to sell, and what was the best way to go about selling it. I ended up choosing a product that I had lots of knowledge and experience about, which made it much easier for me to present because I didn’t have to memorize as much information for the presentation.”

One primary lesson Boehnen learned from this experience is the importance of dedication to his vocation.

“Practice and hard work truly do pay off in the end. Taking the time to prepare for this competition wasn’t always easy or fun, but it was one of the biggest reasons why I was able to succeed,” Boehnen said.

Students within the College of Business and Economics interested in gaining this valuable experience can take the first step by attending DECA meetings, which occur every Tuesday at 5:15 p.m. in Hyland Hall 2306.