Fiducial | We help your business grow and be profitable.

by Stephen Parezo

February 5, 2007—Representatives from Wilde Lake High School had a chance to “meet the mentors” this week at Fiducial’s Technical and Administrative Support Center (TASC) in Columbia, MD, as part of the company’s “Adopt-a-School” Program.

Pictured from left at Fiducial’s Technical and Administrative Support Center (TASC) in Columbia, MD, are: Restia Whitaker, principal of Wilde Lake High School; Suzanne Mesol, work study coordinator, Rochelle Owsley, Fiducial marketing manager, Maddy Bencivenga, business and computer management systems teacher and Sue Bullock, career and technical education department instructional leader.

Principal Restia Whitaker and three teachers from the school attended a meeting where he thanked Fiducial professionals for their “zealousness” in making this opportunity possible.

“It’s a great experience for them [students] as well as you,” said Whitaker. “It’s great for students to get real life learning.”

With interns coming from different backgrounds with different abilities and skills, Whitaker says this program will help provide some additional avenues for students, especially those who never considered working in a corporate environment.

“It’s good to see yourself in that setting,” he said.

Going beyond students’ expectations

Fiducial entered into an agreement last month with Wilde Lake to promote increased involvement in the local educational system and make an investment in tomorrow’s business leaders. This one-year commitment allows Fiducial’s management and employees to get involved by working in the school as well as mentoring youth through in school volunteerism, fundraising and sponsorship events.

The program is designed for junior and senior class students ages 16 to 18 to gain access to more real world opportunities in the small business areas of business services which benefits both the students and their Fiducial mentors. Three sets of student interns will participate in the program to learn more about the company and the types of careers that are available.

“This program will go beyond the expectations of the students,” said Rochelle Owsley, Fiducial’s marketing manager.

The internship program will go further than students just working a few hours on projects for Fiducial several times each week.

“It goes beyond a job,” Owsley said. “It’s really the experience that counts because they know it’s going to help them in the future. These are not jobs to get coffee and run errands. Our people are committed to being mentors and investing in our future.”

Finding solutions to problems

Students will get the chance to observe first-hand some of the routine tasks that Fiducial employees are involved in such as accounting, marketing and information services.

“Kids will really respect hearing it [advice] from the horse’s mouth,” Wilde Lake’s Whitaker said.

Interns will discover that there are problems to be overcome on a daily basis at each job but there are solutions.

“They will hit the roadblocks and find a way around them,” said Sue Bullock, an instructional leader for the career and technical education department at Wilde Lake. “We don’t give them [students] a lot of [on the job] experience so this would really be helpful.”

Maddy Bencivenga, a business and computer management systems teacher, says it’s important for the students to have a corporate connection during this phase of their education.

Bringing the real world to the classroom

“It’s easy to become encapsulated in our daily lives and our environment,” said Bencivenga, “and having this connection exposes our students to a life that exists outside of school as well as the knowledge that corporations care about what is happening in their school.”

Bencivenga noted that this program will add a sense of purpose to why students are learning and why it is important. The “Adopt-a-School” partnership provides interns with real life experience, introduces them to fields that they think they might be interested in and allows them to explore it further. In short, this program helps them apply what they learn in the classroom and augments this learning.

“It means that not everything they do at school is wasted (in teen terms),” she said, “and it brings the real world to the classroom.”

Fiducial will also be co-sponsoring a Business & Entrepreneur Conference on Thursday, March 1 at Wilde Lake from 3 to 5:30 p.m. that’s designed to create an educational forum for local small businesses, interested community members and high school students on business-related topics.

Jim Layton, Fiducial’s director of system support and development, will be explaining at the conference what financial statements are and how they are used to help a business.

Stephen Parezo is the Media Manager for Fiducial.

Whatever your small business needs, your Fiducial tax and financial professional can analyze your situation and recommend an appropriate action plan. To locate a Fiducial office nearest you on fiducial.com, see the Zip Code Locator located in the upper right hand corner of the page. Do you have a particular topic that we should be writing about that can help your business? Please send your suggestions to: stephen.parezo@fiducial.com.

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