Students Given Taste of Business World’s Ethics, Issues

It was 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, and about 600 Orange County high school students were doing what they normally do on weekday mornings--going to class.

But these weren’t your ordinary English or math classes. The students were taking their instruction from business professionals, who were providing them with real-world lessons on entrepreneurship, global competition and business ethics.

The one-hour classes were part of the sixth annual Business Issues Conference held at the Anaheim Convention Center, sponsored by the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Orange County.

The nonprofit educational foundation organized the conference to “increase student awareness of the complexities of decision-making and business ethics, to promote critical thinking and encourage dialogue between business and education,” said Patricia K. Hitchcock, executive director of the Newport Beach-based group.

Twenty-six high schools from throughout the county participated in the conference.

Orange County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, the keynote speaker for the event, said the county’s job picture looks bright. “But there is growing concern,” he said, “that there’s a mismatch between the skills needed and the skills available. Education is the missing key component.”

Most of the students at the conference said they found the workshops valuable.

“It helped me learn what you have to do to get into a business of your own and to succeed in being what you want to be,” said Ronnie Andrews, a junior at San Clemente High School, who attended classes on stress management, establishing a positive self-image and personal financial planning.

Students learned about the world of foreign trade from Barbara Renaud, founder and president of Airtronics Inc., an Irvine aerospace firm.

Renaud stressed the importance of understanding other countries’ cultures and learning about their different business practices. In many countries, she said, it is important to establish a trusting relationship with the foreign executive you are doing business with before a deal can be struck.

“It has been very hard for Americans (to do business overseas) because they want that deal, that money or that contract now, because that’s what they’ve been used to here,” she said.

On the other hand, foreign firms have had to adjust to American firms’ business practices, such as contracts that “are 42 pages long with at least 20 pages of amendments,” she said. “It’s very hard for them. Their contracts are handshakes.”

Several conference sessions dealt with environmental issues and the impact that bad business decisions can have on the environment and local economies.

In a workshop on toxic wastes, students watched a video showing the cleanup of the recent American Tanker oil spill off Huntington Beach.

The spill showed that the oil industry could have developed more advanced technologies to speed up the cleanup, said Ray Picard, chief of the Huntington Beach Fire Department.

Picard told the students that they will someday be the business people making decisions that will affect the environment and other matters.

“Who’s going to run things tomorrow?” he asked. Pointing to the students, he answered: “You.”