Metro's Students In Free Enterprise team won its regional competition for the second consecutive year earlier this month, earning a trip to the national competition in Kansas City to be held May 22-24. The competition judged an array of projects undertaken by SIFE teams throughout the academic year.

"I cannot overestimate the talent and dedication displayed by our SIFE members," said Marketing Professor Mick Jackowski, who advises the team. "I'm extremely proud to be associated with students of this caliber." Metro's competitors included teams from CU-Boulder and CSU-Fort Collins.

In addition to winning the regional competition, the team was honored with special awards for projects in business ethics and global economics, which were judged by a panel from the Denver business community. These projects will advance to the national competition as well, in the "individual awards" category.

The business ethics project was a monthly three-hour appearance on Tom Martino's nationally syndicated radio show. In a segment titled "Customer Kudos with Tom Martino," students provided examples of excellent customer service stories and invited listeners to call the show with their own examples. The response to this segment was so great that Martino has agreed to showcase Metro's SIFE students every month. The global economics project was titled "It's an Economic World After All." In it, a Metro team taught students at West High School in Denver the principles of global economics and teamed them up with SIFE students in Morocco.

SIFE is a national organization promoting free enterprise. Founded in 1975 and active on more than 1,500 college and university campuses in 37 countries, SIFE is one of the largest collegiate organizations in the world. SIFE students apply classroom learning to real-life situations, by implementing educational outreach programs on market economics, entrepreneurship, personal financial success and business ethics.