Last week marked the first business competition experience for Madeline Stevens.

The fourth-year student from Brock’s Goodman School of Business was part of a team that travelled to Burlington, Vt., to compete in the four-day Global Family Enterprise Case Competition.

The event, hosted by the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business, brought together 16 undergraduate and eight graduate teams from around the world.

The Goodman team missed the final round by only one point, but the group’s outstanding performance did not go unnoticed by those who judged the competition.

With a focus on family business, complex business cases were given to student teams four hours before they were slated to present their final recommendations to judges, many of whom were corporate executives or long-time family business owners.

School teams were placed in four undergraduate divisions in which they competed in a round-robin tournament before each division’s top school participated in the final round.

Stevens worked closely with teammates Nick Hollard and Mitchell Cowan, who both competed in the JDC Central competition in Ottawa days before where they both had a hand in helping the Goodman team earn the coveted School of the Year trophy.

Hollard and Cowan returned from Ottawa just in time to travel on to Vermont to represent Brock University on an international level.

In a remarkable display of fortitude and hard work, the Goodman team went on to earn the top spot in the second and third rounds after placing last in their division in the first round.

“After receiving disappointing results on the first day, we became very determined that we were going to win the following days and we did just that,” Stevens said.

“We received so many compliments from judges and had several judges approach us after our presentations to tell us how well we did throughout the competition, which was very encouraging for us.”

After the three competition rounds, school teams were split up to form new teams and compete with a different set of peers for a Collaboration Challenge, of which Cowan’s team won.

Hollard was among five undergraduate students who won the Best Presenter Award, bringing Goodman to the forefront again as the only Canadian school to be mentioned in the category.

“To come last on the first day and to follow that up with two first-place finishes is certainly an accomplishment,” said Professor Herb MacKenzie, who coached and accompanied the team to Vermont.

“I am very proud of this team. They were great ambassadors for the Goodman School of Business.”

Stevens called the competition a memorable experience from which she learned a lot.

“I have applied what I’ve learned in the classroom so many times but this was the first time I did that in this type of environment. Now I wish I had done more competitions during my degree,” she said.

Stevens said she would recommend a competition experience to all business students in their second and third years.

“You don’t have to wait for your professor in fourth year to nudge you out the door,” she said, adding she was encouraged to apply for the competition by one of her marketing professors.

“It was a privilege to work with such a dedicated professor (MacKenzie) as well as excellent, inclusive and experienced teammates.”