April 22, 2009 - Three California State University, Bakersfield students were big winners at the Western States Collegiate Sales Competition held at Arizona State University, Polytechnic Campus in Mesa, Ariz. The students, all from a CSUB professional selling course, took several of the top honors in the competition that included business colleges and schools from universities located in California and Arizona.

CSUB was represented by Judie Padron, who placed second runner-up for the Liberty Mutual portion of the competition; Adam Almeda who was named second runner-up overall; and Randi Bailey who was named overall champion.

"The competition is a valuable way for students, company recruiters and the faculty to interact in a spirit of competition," said Ron Pimentel, marketing professor and coach of the team. "Three of the four years that CSUB has participated in the competition, a member of the team has been named overall champion of the competition."

Contestants are generally from marketing, management or business administration disciplines. Students participate in two sales presentation role plays and are rated by a team of judges made up of company sales executives from sponsoring organizations. This year's event was sponsored by Liberty Mutual Insurance and ADP Payroll Services whose products were featured in the presentations.

"This team trained hard starting in January," Pimentel said. "They are a talented team, but also worked very hard to be competitive. It paid off."