In the classroom, Milford High School has created more opportunities for students interested in the world of business with the Virtual Enterprise International (VEI) class.

VEI, a student program that began 27 years ago, is an educational non-profit that has a goal to transform students into business experts. VEI brings the real world to the classroom by giving students their own business and entrepreneurship global simulations.

Each class, or “firm”, will come up with a product they’re willing to sell. The products can vary from pets to apartments. Milford has two firms: MavCo & BruceCo. MavCo sells tiny houses, BruceCo sells furniture.

These firms can sell their products at in-person and virtual trade shows. All firms are entirely run by students with the teacher (Mrs.Sommer) there to ask questions and help the firms. This includes having a student become a CEO for each firm.

Mrs. Sommer is one of the great teachers that teaches business classes here at Milford. She is an expert on these types of classes, not to mention a great leader and role model.

There are many departments in each firm, including marketing, special projects, legal, and health and human resources (HR). Milford’s VEI class has already been to two trade shows this year in Chicago and at Northwood University.

At trade shows, each firm has an hour to set up their booth. Once that hour is complete, judges come around and see which firm has the best booth.

Then, when the trade show starts, half of the firm will go around the trade show and buy products from other firms, and the other half will stay at their booth and sell. Each participant is given $10,000 added to their salary in virtual money to spend at these shows.

While this occurs, each firm selects students to participate in a business plan presentation and elevator pitch in front of two judges, who select and award the best 3 firms that have the strongest business plan presentation and elevator pitch.

The actual trade show lasts 2-4 hours and is followed by the award ceremony. Senior Clay Henry went to Chicago for the first trade show and said it was a great experience. “ I made friends and memories that will last a lifetime,” he said. “Also, it showed me how a trade show works.”

It shows that not only this class teaches you business skills, you can use them in the real world, but you can also have fun doing it!

VEI has had a major impact on students across the country. BruceCo CEO Jack Manning, who joined last year, touched base on how VEI has impacted his learning experience. “I learned a lot on how to run a firm from last year’s CEO. Now I am CEO of BruceCo. This class taught me how real world businesses work. (It) taught me that everybody in the firm, no matter what their job is, has to do their job so everything can run smoothly.” He mentioned that the experience also taught him patience. “I can’t tell you how many times I tried something and it didn’t work the first time.” It’s great to have a class like VEI at Milford because it clearly teaches real world jobs in the classroom.

The Northwood trade show was the most recent show the class attended. On Dec. 1st, Milford’s VEI class traveled up to Northwood for their second trade show of the year. This one was a lot smaller than Chicago, but it followed the same format.

The students learned a lot, especially the ones who didn’t go to Chicago. Alex Phipps attended the show and said,  “The Northwood trade show helped me a lot to learn how to sell and buy products at trade shows.”

Taking the VEI class at Milford is a great opportunity to learn how the business world works. This gives students  a real world experience and a more collaborative way of doing things. Also, VEI is just a lot of fun!