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Northview FBLA Students Learn Real World Lessons
February 16, 2008
Never stop learning. That was the lesson that students in Northview High School’s Future Business Leaders of American learned Friday as they wrapped up their celebration of Florida’s FBLA Week.
“When you graduate from high school and go to college you will learn everyday. When you get out of college, you will learn everyday in your life,” Shardra Scott, assistant to the president and CEO of Gulf Power Company, told the FBLA students (pictured left).
“If you learn just one thing from me today, learn that you never stop learning,” she said. “That will keep you marketable.”
Another important thing is to know your competition. She told the students that their competition is not just other people in the job market, but it is a global competition because so many jobs are performed overseas over the Internet now.
“You have to build a diverse work team of people with different experiences,” Scott said of good leader. “You don’t need someone on your team to tell you what you already know.”
She also taught an important lesson about saying “no” with a “yes”. Rather than telling a supervisor that a job can not be done, provide them options on how it could be done.
“But before you can go into leadership, you have to learn to perform where you are, regardless of you work situation,” Scott said. “You are interviewing every day of your life.”
She asked the students how many had MySpace pages. Nearly every hand in the room went up.
“The Internet is a powerful tool, but it can also be a very destructive tool,” Scott said. “How many of you have something raunchy on your MySpace page?” There were no “yes” answers, just a few chuckles. She reminded the students that once something is posted on the Internet, it can be around forever. “Give your best today so it won’t come back to haunt you tomorrow.”
Annie Gilmore, Northview’s Business Ed teacher and FBLA sponsor, presented Scott with a certificate of appreciation for speaking to the NHS FBLA (pictured bottom left0. A certificate of appreciation was also presented to parent Loretta Snow, mother of FBLA President Ashley Snow, for her continued support of the program as a volunteer (pictured bottom right).
Scott joined Southern Company in 1991 as an engineering co-op at Alabama Power Company and has served in a number of capacities including distribution engineer, industrial marketing key accounts manager, power systems coordinator and transmission customer service projects coordinator and team leader.
Scott is a member of the Leadership Pensacola 2008 Class, Gulf Coast Chapter of American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) where she serves on the Education and Governmental Affairs Committees, Gulf Power Engineering Society, Gulf/Southern Association, Gulf Power Transformers and is a recent past participant in Escambia County’s “I Love Science” program.
Scott earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Alabama. She is also a graduate of the Alabama Power Company Leadership Development Program.
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