The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Executive Team picture in the Bergen Room on the Bergen Community College campus for the project “Dining at the Bergen Room: the Ultimate Dining Experience” on April 24th, 2024.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
Two semesters ago we created the project “It’s Cultural on Campus-Bergen Community College” publicizing the Gallery Bergen, The Ciccone Theater and the Bergen Room Bistro to the outside community. It was a ‘Digital Campaign’ to bring people to the Bergen Community College campus from all over Bergen County, NJ to enjoy all the wonderful things to do and see on our campus. The project was a huge success and all the Professors and Departments involved really enjoyed the Presentations (See Day Two Hundred and Sixty-Six):
Day Two Hundred and Sixty-Six: “It’s Cultural on Campus”:
One of my counterparts on campus loved the campaign and ‘hired’ (asked me) to expand the project for a “Digital Campaign” for the Bergen Room and expand the project with all new menus, commercials and create a special Themed Dinner for the student dining room. This resulted in “Dining in the Bergen Room”:
I got Professor Drakeford and Professor/Chef Morrisey involved in the project and we worked together to see the best ways to promote the success of the Culinary Program’s Student Run Dining Room.
I created the Teams two weeks before the Spring Break and got them started on their project. When we returned from the Spring Break, we arranged for the class to dine in the Bergen Room. Chef Morrisey and his Team of Culinary Students created a special menu for us when the Bergen Room was closed and the students got feast on a four course meal courtesy of the Culinary Arts Department.
Having lunch with my students at the Bergen Room on the Bergen Community College Campus in Paramus, NJ:
We started the Testing Menu with a Pumpkin Carrot Ginger Soup.
Then we had the second course with a Toasted Green Salad with a light Cream Dressing.
The main course was a Chicken in a Creamy Peppercorn Sauce, Baked Pasta and Roasted Brussel Spouts.
The meal was completed with a Cream Cheesecake that tasted more like a cream cake and topped with Fresh Strawberries.
All the Teams got to dine with one another and get to know each member in a less formal setting.
This meal got the students to know their product better and look around the Bergen Room and see how they could take this student run dining room and transform it to a special themed event that would dazzle myself and the other Professors and bring in the paying public. Here are some of their ideas:
Along the way, I had various speakers come in to talk to the students. Professor Tim Blunk from the Art Department and the Curator for Gallery Bergen, our on campus Art Gallery came in to talk to the students about the artists that are available on campus and the number of students on campus who are looking for projects for their portfolios. He also discussed some of the happenings at Gallery Bergen.
Professor Jim Bumgarner, the head of our Theater Department, came in to talk to the students on the student singers, actors and dancers that study at the college. He discussed upcoming shows and theater events planned for the future. He added too that there are a lot of students looking to add to their resumes on projects like this.
Our last in house field trip was to the Horticultural Department and to the Greenhouses in Ender Hall. Dr. Steven Fischer, who is head of the Holocultural Program, gave us a tour and talk on the growing seasons, the plants that are grown and available in the greenhouses, the arrangements that are created for the Bergen Room Bistro.
The tour of Greenhouses on our last inhouse field trip with Dr. Fischer explaining the greenhouses.
Asking questions about the floral arrangements used for the Bergen Room.
Discussion of the grounds of the Horticulture Department grounds.
It was a good tour and opened the students eyes on how events were decorated and where the flowers came from and how they were grown. The students were creating their centerpieces for their theme dinners and I wanted them to see where they would get the flowers from.
My President and SVP of Operations on the field trip to the Greenhouses.
We finished our last Board meeting the week before the Presentation and then the Executive Team had a week to make the adjustments. We would be presenting the Project in the Bergen Room Bistro on April 24th, 2024.
The new Corporate website for the Bergen Room Team:
The Presentation Day had some hiccups along the way but overall it was a great Presentation. I was so proud of the students. Each of the competing Teams set up for extra credit a table in the Bergen Room on how their Dining Experience would be set for the evening of their meal. I have to say that the Teams did a nice job with the decorations and all received extra credit for their place settings. There was a lot of creativity in this class.
The were the three Team tables on how they would be set for their ideas for the Student Fundraiser.
Team One’s Display Table
Team Two’s Display table (The Wining Team)
Team Three’s Display Table
The Three Teams then started their Presentations to Chef Morrisey and his student staff, invited guests and friends of the students who came to see the Student Consultants ideas. What creativity! Each team had to present their theme, their menus, music for the event, artwork, floral arrangements and Social Media campaigns. It was an afternoon of a lot of creativity and though that went into each Teams ideas.
Here are their Commercials promoting the Bergen Room:
Team One:
Team Two:
Team Three:
Here are their Presentations from the afternoon. Each Team had to ‘pitch’ their ideas to the Culinary Team.
Team One:
Team Two:
Team Three:
The Teams competed for the prize being the most creative and effective project to sell the Bergen Room Bistro to the outside community.
Team Three even created for extra credit a AI version of visiting the Bergen Room.
After the Team conclusion, it was time for questions and answers. The point of the whole project was to get the students ready for a career in business and marketing and there were questions of why the project was taken so seriously. The answer I had for one parent was that you want your son or daughter to get a good job out of college? It is better they get their lumps here than on a new job. They will be more prepared for the workforce.
One parent did compliment me in that his son was so excited about the project and it really showcased his son’s talents in filming and graphics. That was nice to hear that students are excited about their work. I know that these are the students that will get good jobs out of college and be prepared for Corporate expectations.
I couldn’t more proud of a group of students that banded together to showcase this wonderfully run student dining room.
Have you been there yet?
I took pictures with my Executive Team before the Presentation. I very proudly wore my Alumni Chef’s Jacket from when I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1998. I don’t think it had been out of the dry cleaning plastic since that time.
Professor/Chef/CEO Justin Watrel with SVP of Operations Ayesha Zulfiqar and President Tugay Bera Bozogluer.
Professor Justin Watrel with the winning Team Project from Team Two. I was very impressed with their work. The Team was lead by Vice-President Mauricio Benitez and Team Leader Dennis Shkembi.
My group picture with Team Three lead by Vice-President Taner Ender and Team Leaders Kane Cheng.
Our Corporate picture for the Bergen Room Team at the end of the Presentation.
I am so proud of my students each semester. I like knowing I am training the next group of Executives for their future.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
Recently our college was talking about recruitment to the school and the outreach to the high schools. I had seen the recent “Open House’ flyers and emails on campus and sent to my email and I thought the event could have a bit more pizzaz to it. You were trying to recruit students to come to the college and I thought there could be more to it. Working from our Homecoming, Welcome Week and Ambassadors programs that we had done in the past, I thought of “Go Bulldogs Go!-Open House Spring 2024”, a reinvented Open House with dinners, events, concerts and fun activities for the high school students, their parents and current students to enjoy.
“Go Bulldogs Go-Open House 2024 at Bergen Community College Project:
From here I picked my Executive Team and the various Divisional Teams to complete the project. We had the Talent Team, which pays for everything and get the Benefits package together along with the creating the Holiday Party at the end of the project. The Entertainment Team, who would provide all the musicians and musical performances to all the events that we had planned, the Food Service Team, which created all the menus, meals and ideas for serving food and snacks at all the functions. The most important Team was the Marketing Team, who had to promote the whole program to the high schools, Administration, Students and Parents, to all the events and to the Alumni. It was a big job and we only had seven weeks to put the whole thing together.
Being a CEO does have its headaches though. When you have a class of thirty people working on a project, there is a lot going on and there are those who try to ‘piggyback’ off other students and some just disappear. I had both of those. There were a lot of students I had to work with going forward on this project and a lot of leading I had to do. Having three projects going simultaneously was a lot of work for myself and my Executive Teams but I knew all of them could do it.
This was a project that I really wanted to come to life. I think we can do more for our student recruiting and wanted the programs to really shine to show the best of the college and all its attributes. The first day of the project, I broke the class up into Teams and discussed the project.
The Open House that we were creating was a three day event where we engaged both high school students and their parents, the current student body of Bergen Community College and Alumni.
I challenged the students to put a Pep Rally together for the sports teams on campus, a active concert and games, a nice International dinner and a breakfast brunch with music and an active tour of campus while promoting the campus for students to attend. The tours were created to show the best attributes of campus such as the music labs, the AI labs, the Ciccone Theater, the Bergen Room, Gallery Bergen and all our sporting facilities. There is so much at our campus that people do not see on these tours. I also do not like the idea that we burden students with financial aid issues not instead of when they accept coming so I put less emphasis on that. I want them to know all the great cultural things they can enjoy when they do decide to come to Bergen Community College.
As part of the class, I had an in class field trip around campus. I could not believe that most of these students didn’t know that all these things existed on campus. I should have learned from previous classes. This is how this all got inspired. When I asked all the students what their experience was like on campus, most of them just said that they came to class and went home. They never ventured around the campus. A few ate in the cafeteria and one or two had been to the Ciccone Theater and a few more had heard of Gallery Bergen.
The in class trip included Gallery Bergen, with its new contemporary art exhibition, the Bergen Room (in its old location) and the Ciccone Theater, where Professor Baumgartner was doing dress rehearsals but always has time to talk about the Theater Department. That really helps. Then we went outside to the new outdoor courtyard to show the students the logistics of where the concerts and some of the cultural events would take place. Then it back to the classroom to start getting the groups to work on the project. The majority of the students finally got what I was talking about and got to work. Then we started our weekly board meetings.
After seven weeks, the Teams were preparing for our Presentation on December 6th, 2023. I have to say that I was going through a lot in my personal life. Sinterklaas weekend had been the weekend before and all I had done is run around the Hudson River Valley with the Snowflake and Sinterklaas festivities in both Kingston and Rhinebeck, NY. There was a lot of running around the two towns plus running to Ringwood Manor before I left to take pictures of the mansion’s decorations for Christmas. I was not too sure how much time I would have after Christmas (I found that I had none) and was on a picture taking tour.
Then I had my own class presentations in Digital Marketing and Customer Relations class with much stress to get them right (I got ‘A’s on them both) and then had two days of my own students presentations to be followed by another presentation I had to make in Bloomingdales President Marvin Traub with his book “Like No other Store in the World” for my Hotel Sales & Marketing Class (another ‘A’) and then lead to another weekend of picture taking upstate of historical homes and towns. I never sat still and got very little sleep.
In the morning, I had presented my “I’m Glad I’m in Glen Rock, NJ” project with my Marketing class and that went off perfectly so I had high expectations of this class. My President and Senior Vice-President of Operations did not let me down. We had a few hiccups with the presentation but overall it was excellent and I was very impressed by the work and effort the students.
The project results were wonderful and it really showcased the campus with wonderful events to engage the students and their parents over a three day period. I know if the campus really put this whole event on, we would recruit a lot more students with no problems.
What was nice that evening was talking with the parents after the presentation. They were not only impressed by their sons and daughters presentation but impressed by the whole class. That all keep wondering how I get them all to dress up and especially shave. I always reply the same thing, I grade them. I really think though it is the pride that the students have in doing a good job and wanting the look the part of being an executive representing the company. This project prepares them for a future that is unknown to them but now a lot less scary.
This contains all the commercials, artwork, the PowerPoint and headquarters plans.
The Holiday Party Project:
In lieu of the traditional quiz, I have the students get back in their groups and create ideas for a Corporate Christmas Party for the New Brunswick headquarters. It always amazes me what the Teams can do in an hour. The funny part by this point is that they are so used to working with one another it becomes second nature to them. This quiz is a nice way to end the semester and maybe create some new friendships amongst the students.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
To continue the tradition of marketing small Bergen County towns for foreign and domestic tourism, I had been eyeing Glen Rock, NJ as the next town to promote. A small upper middle class town in the northern part of Bergen County, Glen Rock is rich in history. Known for the famous “Rock” just off the southern part of the downtown that the town is named for and a small but vibrant downtown and a small historical museum that was in need of some social media attention, I thought this was the best town to choose this time around.
I spent a couple of days exploring the downtown to get some inspiration and ate lunch in a local pizzeria that I was not thrilled with. I made some adjustments to the project when I looked at the town’s Facebook page to see what types of activities that they hold. I saw that they needed more detailed events at all the holidays, a stronger downtown presence and a new town logo. This is when these projects become fun. You want to show a town its potential for tourism in the future both domestic and foreign. There was so much to show off in the town of Glen Rock, NJ.
The Project “I’m Glad I’m in Glen Rock, NJ: Be a Tourist in your own Town”:
These projects take about six to seven weeks to pull together. I had seen my class roster several weeks earlier and I knew most of the students who were in my class had taken my Introduction to Business class so I knew where to plug in most of this semester’s executives of the company.
The “I’m Glad I’m in Glen Rock” Team on our tour of the Town of Glen Rock, NJ for our project with the Honorable Councilwoman Jill Orlich.
Glen Rock does not the historic downtown that Paterson, Rutherford or Westwood have but they do have a wonderful museum with the “Museum at the Station”, their small historical society at the Glen Rock Train Station and of course “The Rock”, a famous Lenape tribe marker located south of the downtown. There was a lot of history in the town and many places that tourists would like to visit.
I built on some of the ideas that I had used in the Rutherford and Westwood projects, creating new Christmas, Halloween and Summer events based on what we did for the other towns. I knew there were some problems with the Tree Lighting ceremony in town so we created the “Snowflake Festival” with Mr. and Mrs. Snowflake as the ‘grand marshals’ of the event as opposed to Santa Claus.
For Halloween, we created the “Pumpkin Festival” with the theme around the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, which was a series of tents with all sorts of activities from face painting, pumpkin decorating and watching the film that evening.
For the Summer, I saw that Glen Rock does a lot for their Senior residents. This is not the “Big Band” era group but the “Disco Era” group of seniors so I wanted to create something special for them as well. So I created a “Seniors and the 70’s” event where bands that played 1970’s music would be featured for a full month in their bandstand in Veteran’s Park.
For our Historical Team, they were tasked with creating a Lenape tribe event in honor of the long history with the town’s origins, a historical tour of the town starting in the downtown area and creating an ad campaign and commercial to promote the “Museum at the Station”. It is such a great museum so why weren’t people visiting it? Plus the group’s each had to come up with a series of new logos for the town.
The new Lenape Indian logo by the Historical Team
It was an ambitious group of events.
I knew the students were up for the challenge. Still it was a challenge for me to get some of the students to buy into the concept. Every semester it is the same thing. Eighty percent of the students buy into the group project and then there are the few who do nothing. I could see that this semester as well.
The Lenape Event created by The Historical Team
We started the project myself introducing the project to the students four weeks into the course and explaining the project and how I wanted to approach it. Since a third of the class had taken my course in Introduction to Business, they had all worked on similar projects in the past and understood what was expected of them.
Our fifth week into class, I took the students on a walking tour and lunch in Glen Rock, NJ’s downtown and parks so that they would know what the town was all about and its attributes. On a sunny but really cold day, we met at “The Rock” to start the tour of downtown. We started with the history of “The Rock” and the part it played in Lenape life. We were joined on the tour by the Honorable Councilwoman Jill Orlich.
Myself with my student consultants in Veteran’s Park in Glen Rock, NJ where most of the proposed special events would take place.
We then moved on to the Museum at the Station which was closed for the day. I had taken the students here Halloween weekend on the only Sunday afternoon that they were open and gave them extra credit for coming. We filled the museum to capacity for the entire afternoon and the students were able to see what the history of the town was about. We just took pictures and noted parking for the events that would be planned here.
The Museum by the Station-The Glen Rock Historical Society at
We then did a loop of the Downtown, stopping in stores and visiting parks and the train stations to see how people from the community commute to jobs in Newark, Jersey City and New York City. This is also how outside tourism can be attained and people can commute into the town to attend anyone of the festivities.
We ended the tour with a Team lunch at Francesca’s Brick Oven Pizza and Pasta at 234 Rock Road in Downtown Glen Rock. The food and the service were excellent. It gave the student consultants as chance to ‘break bread’ and get to know one another better. This is a good Team building exercise plus a chance to experience their first business lunch with a company.
The Marketing Team Dining with each other at Francesca’s.
The Talent Team dining together at Francesca’s.
By our last Board Meeting, I thought we were ready and on December 6th, we made the formal presentation to the ladies at the Museum by the Station and a few invited guests. Being an afternoon class, I could not force people to change their schedule’s but it would have been nice to see more people at the Presentation.
The Presentation went by well and it was handled very professionally but we had some problems in the Marketing Division on what should have been included and what should not. They gave a whole presentation on the attributes of Marketing and that was not what was asked of them. I later found out they were doing project at the last minute and that did not thrill me. I could see this in the slides, menus and concepts. Still they created some memorable commercials promoting the town and the new Town Song. The logos they created for Glen Rock were excellent. All of this was changed and reorganized when we went to present the project to the Mayor and Council at Glen Rock City Hall on December 19th.
The newly created town logo for Glen Rock, NJ.
The Marketing Team proposals:
The Marketing Commercial:
The Glen Rock Town Song:
Welcome to Glen Rock commercial (the old commercial):
The Presentation of “I’m Glad I’m in Glen Rock, NJ-Be a Tourist in your own Town” in the classroom on December 6th, 2023. The Presentation went by very well and I was really impressed with the way the students handled themselves:
The PowerPoint presentation of “I’m Glad I’m in Glen Rock, NJ:
After the Presentation was over, I hosted a light reception for the students, our invited guests and family members. The ladies from the Museum by the Station/Glen Rock Historical Society had a lot of nice praise for the project and some interesting questions.
On December 19th, 2023 at the request of the Mayor, we presented a revamped version of the project with new ideas from the Marketing Team along with the selection of bands that would be used for the “Seniors and the 70’s” series of concerts. By the end of the Presentation, I could see that the Mayor and Councilwoman who showed up for the evening. They had a lot of intriguing questions from the stance of budgeting and attainment of volunteers and how to run the events.
The Presentation in Glen Rock City Hall in Glen Rock, NJ:
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
This was filmed at Glen Rock City Hall in Glen Rock, NJ.
I treated the project as a real proposal and informed the Mayor and Council that Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. would try to obtain things like Corporate sponsorship for the big events and that we could work with the local colleges and the high school for volunteerism to help out to help defer costs.
We were also joined that evening by many parents of the student consultants who could not attend the first Presentation due to work commitments. It was a nice evening out for everyone and productive in giving the town some fresh ideas with an international prospective (at no cost to them) to tourists visiting the town.
Trust me, I was just as blown away by the project as the Mayor and Council were that evening, I would not have believed a group of students put all of this together but they did.
I really was “Glad I was in Glen Rock, NJ”.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.-Glen Rock Team Corporate picture on December 6th, 2023.
The website for the Glen Rock Team of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.:
As part of Quiz Four for the class, I have the students create a Corporate Holiday Party for the Glen Rock Division for Corporate New Brunswick. Here are their ideas:
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
This time around I got a request from a fellow professor who wanted to promote Gallery Bergen, our on-campus art gallery, for outside tourism. I liked the challenge of that because I have used Gallery Bergen in the past for cocktail parties and gatherings in my other projects such as Welcome Week, Homecoming and visiting the campus. I had always opened my events or included Gallery Bergen in some way in the past projects.
Now Professor Tim Blunk, the art professor who runs the gallery, gave us the challenge of how-to bring people from the Bergen County community into the gallery for the then current Faith Ringgold exhibition “From Jones Road”. Since I had so many students in the class, I thought about a competition between three groups as I had for the “Caribe Cafe” project in which each group would a presentation on the same subject, but I thought we really needed to promote other parts of campus as well.
The interview with Professor Tim Blunk on Gallery Bergen. The inspiration for this project.
So I added The Bergen Room, our Culinary Department’s student dining room and the Ciccone Theater and the Theater Department. I asked all the professors who are involved in these different departments, and they were all enthusiastic about the project. They have been helpful in many of my projects over the last decade.
This time around I had an Executive Team to run the whole show. In the ‘Caribe Cafe’ concept, I had Team Leaders run each Team but with no one in charge of the whole project. I needed an Executive Team to run the presentation, put the website together, put the Team Wrap Up party at the end of the project together and create the budget.
I was very lucky in that one of my students had been the Team Leader for Marketing for our “Springfest” project was in my Marketing class and I knew who was going to get the top spot (and as the CEO/Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc I know who’s talented). I picked another student whose “Be a tourist in your own Town” paper on Dumont was excellent to be the Senior Vice-President of Operations. Both ladies work was wonderful and could not have been more professional. They both did an excellent job on putting the whole project together and running the presentation.
The President and Senior Vice-President of Operations ran the presentation, engaged with the Executive Team their ideas for the Office Space for the Team and their ideas for the Wrap-Up Party. Their ideas were well received by the Team.
Then each Team presented their section of the project which consisted of ideas to promote their site, presentation of their commercial and their interview with the professor who ran that division of campus. Each Team member discussed their section of the project and the ideas they had to bring in more of the Bergen County community to the college.
The Proposal for the project “It’s Cultural on Campus”:
CEO Professor Justin Watrel with President Valery Cardona and SVP of Operations Rachel Montpellier and their Team of Vice-Presidents and Team Leaders and Members.
The day of the presentation since it had to be done during the day all four of the professors who assisted in the project were in classes but one parent did show up and she was the one who took our picture. That made me happy.
The presentation was wonderful as each group presented their ideas to better advertise and promote each facility to the Bergen County and beyond target market of customers. The student dining room was presenting lunch each Thursday afternoon at 11:00am, the Faith Ringgold exhibition was in full swing at Gallery Bergen and the Theater Department was promoting their showcase so there was a lot going on at the Bergen Community College campus. The students presented the way to get people there.
We had a small Q & A because there were just two of us there. This was followed by a light reception for the students before they had to head to their next classes and work. I could not have been more proud of a group of students accomplishing this project.
Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. headquarters thanks you too!
Commercials:
The Gallery Bergen Team:
An Excellent job promoting the “Faith Ringgold” exhibition (in Spanish)
The Bergen Room Team:
The Ciccone Theater Team:
We got to see part of the latest production from the theater and interview with the director
You can see the interviews with the Professors for each department on the full presentation.
I wanted to thank Professors Tim Blunk of Gallery Bergen, Professor Jim Bumgardner of the Theater Department & Ciccone Theater and Professor Rhonda Drakeford and Chef/Professor Aaron Morrisey for their assistance in making this project the success it was for the students. A special thank you to my boss, Dr. Pierre Laguerre for his constant support on making these projects possible.
A big congratulations to the Marketing Team. You are the ones that brought the project to life!
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
This semester I wanted to do something different and I decided to partner with our new foodservice vendor for the college, American Dining Creations and figure out a way to promote the business to the students and faculty. I know that the pizzeria has been very successful as well as the Starbucks on the first floor but the cafeteria has been struggling even with the change of the menu.
So the proposal that I had for the students was how can we market, advertise and promote our food service facilities. How can we engage with the students and faculty to get them to eat here? How could we promote the Loyalty program to get more people eating in all outlets?
I also wanted the students to create new brand logos to have a theme more related to the campus. I wanted to see their creativity with creating commercials to promote the outlets. I know I expect a lot in a short period of time but every semester, I know the students are up for the challenge.
As usual I break the students up in Teams lead by a Vice-Presidents and Team Leaders. I found last semester with the ‘Caribe Cafe’ concept that I still need someone to coordinate the whole thing, so I choose my President and Senior Vice-President of Operations from the pool of student resumes that I get every semester. Some are good, some are not good and some are indifferent but I have knack for raw talent. I do every semester.
I chose my president and SVP of Operations from the pool of students and they did not disappoint me. They held their meetings, organized their meetings with their Vice-Presidents and Team Leaders, organized their Wrap Up Party and had to find their office space. It is quite the challenge.
Every semester I have those students that just do not get the project and can’t seem to handle the work. They challenge the work and just don’t want to do it. This is a reflective of how they will behave in the work force when they graduate. These are the ones who when they fill out faculty evaluations can’t gasp that I preparing them for a life after graduation. This reflects in their presentation.
It was a challenge as it is every semester. I have my internal challenges with the students. I have to keep everyone motivated. This is why I have an Executive Team to run things. I let the students work this out amongst themselves.
Like all my projects, I really got to see the student Team’s creativity. I asked the students to come up with a game plan to bring more students and faculty to dine at the cafeteria. The would create new logos for the outlets, new menus and food ideas and a series of commercials to promote the two outlets. I also asked them to think of design ideas for the cafeteria. There were a lot of creative ideas that came from rebranding the two outlets.
Where there were a lot of creative and unique ideas was in the menus and the diversity of food that the students had for the main cafeteria.Some Teams developed dishes with an Asian fusion influence. Some came up with Tapas and many Spanish influenced ideas. Turkish food and a Middle Eastern influence has become popular and I saw many different ideas for this as well. Some kept it classic and wanted to see more sandwiches and maybe an ice cream bar.
All the ideas kept the concept fresh and it was not always the traditional burgers, chicken sandwich and fingers and subs that the cafeteria in the past was featuring. This is good as a sample but students tastes are changing. Also with such a diverse student body and people being more adventurous eaters, I think their ideas were brilliant.
The night of the presentation went off very well. Like all my other presentations, I wish the attendance had been a bit better. We had a nice nice amount of family and friends of the students but no one from Administration came which bummed me out. I thought this was a major way to contribute to a new vendor with input from the students.
My Executive Team just like the morning class really impressed me. Some students who I was not sure how they would present really impressed me with their ideas, their creativity and especially the way they were dressed. The students came ‘Dressed for Success’ in suits, blazers, dresses, skirts and matching pant suits. I have a lot of convincing of the students that this will be the wave of the future when people start heading back to the offices in droves. People will want to see well dressed workers in the office.
Some of the things that impressed me the most was the use each Team had in creating a mobile App for the cafeteria. I thought this was a good idea and could control orders, pick up and food waste. The commercials were especially impressive with a lot ways to get students in the door. What I also liked was some Teams thought out of the box and came up with creative solutions on how to redesign the cafeteria dining room to make it more user friendly. I liked the idea of couches, new seating and things like ping pong games and video games for the students in between classes.
By the end of the evening, Jack seemed very impressed by the whole presentation and asked some interesting questions. He told me later on he could not believe all of this came from students. I told him from the beginning that this is his target market and you have to ask them what they want from the food service on campus. Even some of the parents walked up to me and could not believe this was a student presentation. They were impressed by the professionalism of it all. I told them that this is where their tuition dollars were going.
We concluded with a small reception of my homemade cookies and brownies where once again nothing was left. It was another success promotion by the executives of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
The project “Feasting at Bergen Community College: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner”:
The Executive Team for “Feasting a Bergen Community College: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner”:
Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. President Angelo and Senior Vice-President of Operations Olga Medina and their Executive Team of Vice-Presidents, Team Leaders and Team Members on Presentation Night.
The Team Presentations:
Team One Presentation:
Team Two Presentation:
Team Three Presentation:
The week after the presentations, I gave the students Quiz Four. Just like last semester, I decided to make ti a group project and had the students create a Summer Barbecue concept. Read an imaginary letter from one of my partners about organizing a Corporate Barbecue dinner and the students had to create an invitation, a menu and then a video welcome. Everyone in the class got an “A” and here is some of their ideas:
Spring Quiz Four (The Shared Project with my morning class):
I find this a lot more fun than a standard quiz and the students get a kick out of the Team building. That and everyone got an “A” on Quiz Four.
I wanted to thank Jack Yukel from American Dining Creations for being so helpful to me and to the class and so supportive of this project. It was his input that made this Team project so successful. Second I wanted to thank all the students in my Introduction to Business class who made this project come to life. It is your creativity each semester that make this projects the success that they are for the class.
I constantly try to come up with innovative ideas to promote Bergen Community College with engaging ideas to get students involved the way the four year colleges get their students involved. The courtyard by the main building was just finished being renovated and it is a really nice place for students to gather. There are a lots of places to sit and for people to talk. We have been using it for smaller events when the weather is nice but not in the way to get the whole college involved. I was thinking of ideas of how to get my Introduction to Business students engaged this semester and I had a big group of students (32) to get motivated. Things have changed since COVID started.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
I came up with “Springfest” when I was looking for names of college events and it sounded like a fun name. I thought back to “Dragon Days” at Cornell and how much fun the students had during that week. At Michigan State, we did not have too many of these campus wide when I was there and we created our own when I lived at Wilson Hall. Welcome Week, Winter Carnival, State is Great Week, and Spring Fling were on their way to becoming traditions at our hall.
At Bergen Community College, we don’t have any big traditional events like these since we are commuter campus. I wanted to change that and I challenged the students to come up with ideas that would involve the whole college. In the past semesters we have created an Student Ambassador Program, Welcome Week for new students, Homecoming for students and Alumni and Springfest would be another big student/alumni event. It would be a series of concerts, dinners, a pep rally and an alumni breakfast that students could join in. It would also be a community event and introduce new students to campus.
Springfest would bridge that gap and a way to show off the campus and all its attributes. I also challenged the students to write a school song. This is the third time that I have done this and the students always do a different take on it. I like the different versions of the song that come from each group.
Like my other two classes, my Marketing class was creating “It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ-Be a Tourist in your own Town” and my other Introduction to Business class was creating “Caribe Cafe-A Taste of the Caribbean”, I used the Hierarchy system and created an Executive Team with a President, SVP of Operations, Vice-Presidents, Team Leaders and Team Members. Like my other classes, I had a lot of drama with this group.
“Springfest 2023” was to be a three day Spring Festival with concerts every night, a pep rally for all the sports teams, a barbecue, a student organization introduction, welcome to new students, a carnival with games and actors walking around, food trucks and an alumni breakfast. The students made all of this come to life with creative and innovative ideas in their proposal. I was impressed by the ingenuity that the student consultants showed that evening. My President and Senior Vice-President of Operations showed a cool and calm front and the utmost professionals that evening, leading their Team to success in the presentation.
The project was not without its share of problems and it is all things we see in the real world in the workforce. I had Team members I had to constantly talk to about their performances, their lack of input and not communicating with the Vice-President. I swear I had not done this much discipline since I worked at Macy’s. So this is what the modern CEO is going through. I know that cellphones are going to the bain of our society and our modern business world.
Even through all the drama that I had to endure and what challenges I put the Executive Team through, the student executives overcame it and put together one hell of a presentation. In the end though I had to fire three students from the project and I never did that before but again the modern CEO has a company to run and people who will not do the work can’t be part of the results. They need to find another place to work.
Still, I was proud of the students and here is the project “Springfest 2023”:
The Marketing Team’s “Welcome to Bergen Community College” Video:
The Marketing Team’s Instagram Account:
The Entertainment Team’s video on the new school song:
See the presentation below
The Presentation of the Paramus Team Project “Springfest 2023”:
In lieu of giving a forth quiz, I gave the Teams the scenario that my Corporate partner, Susan Gonzales Honan, was impressed by the Team’s performance on the project and challenged the four Teams to come up with ideas for the New Brunswick Corporate Christmas Party. The project included creating an invitation, a menu with an appetizer, main dish, dessert and a signature Christmas drink. The Entertainment Team was asked to create an original Christmas song for the company. They came up with a very interesting rap song. Here are the results from each Team.
CEO Justin Watrel with Vice-President of Entertainment Joshua Manns and his Executive Team on the night of the presentation.
It is amazing how a small conversation about importing gourmet products from the Dominican Republic can lead to such a detailed and interesting project. Every semester these students amaze me and this group of Business 101 students really ‘knocked it out of the ballpark”. I was really impressed by the results of each group as well as all the parents and invited guests were as well.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
How this project was created was when the class was having a discussion importing and exporting. I asked some of the students whose families have either lived or are from the Dominican Republic about food products that manufactured in their country. Could they sell here to non-Dominican customers, or should these vendors cater exclusively to one type of customer? What was the class thoughts on it? I have to say that the class as a whole did not have much of an opinion on this, but it got me thinking.
I had to put together a group project for the students and since one of my classes was already out in the field with the “It’s Wonderful in Westwood” project, I did not want to take any more students out of the classroom. So, we would have to do an in-class project. I approached a group of the students who I had had a discussion with that week on their thoughts on importing products into the country and how they would sell. Again, not many opinions but they thought it might work if it was done in conjunction with either a grocery store or a restaurant. Also, it might be better to use the whole Caribbean as a market.
So, I went home and thought about ideas for a restaurant/gourmet foods Panera type Spanish restaurant concept that might work in the suburbs and “Caribe Cafe” was created under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. “Caribe Cafe” proposal project:
The project was to create the “Caribe Cafe” concept from ground up. The students would be serving as consultants for the company pitching their concepts to future investors. I broke the students up into four groups and they had to create:
*The Floor Plan
*The Menu with a Caribbean theme
*A Gourmet Department with food items from Spanish/Caribbean vendors
*Have a music soundtrack of Spanish/Caribbean artist
*Create design of the restaurant with Spanish/ Caribbean art work from /well-known and. or local artists.
*Design the restaurant with ideas on the color scheme and furniture for the interior
*Set up a Marketing campaign that included Restaurant Opening ideas, a Membership Program, a Coupon Program and Advertising.
*Film a commercial to promote their Restaurant concept
From there, things that they added like staffing, prices, menu breakdown etc. that it takes to open a restaurant would be considered extra credit. How far they wanted to take the project and in-depth they wanted to be in the presentation was up to the individual teams. Then I put the students into their groups and left the last forty-five minutes of each class for them to meet. Then I dangled the prize for the best team, a half grade bump up in their final grade for the class. That got everyone motivated.
For the next five weeks I saw the enthusiasm of the project build and everyone come up with ideas and brainstorm their projects. I also saw by two weeks before the project was due was the grumbling many Team members whose partners were not stepping up the plate and not doing their jobs. The Team Leaders also complained to me of members who would not listen and not meet deadlines. I told everyone that this is why “they were the boss” and that we would have two more meetings before the project was due. Every week we had Board Meetings to check on progress and I reminded everyone that we would be presenting this project on November 17th right before Thanksgiving. They needed to be finished and ready to go the week before.
The Teams presented these ideas for logos to Corporate:
The day of the Presentation, I got in early to set up with the AV representative and set up for the reception. Each of the Teams got there early to set up their Team displays of foods that they would be featuring and getting their Dress Code grades.
The day of the presentation was not without its drama with some students still arguing with one another on the project and the kids who did not want meet the Dress Code standard. Then there were the students who did not show up or did not present that evening. Being the CEO of a company does come with its pitfalls. Still the presentations were excellent and the Food Displays were fantastic. I saw so much creativity with the food selections.
The presentations were all done in English and Spanish and with the amount of visitors including family members and friends who do not speak English well, this project makes them feel more comfortable and part of the business equation. I reminded the students that not every investor would be a English speaker. We are ‘pitching’ this idea to an International crowd of investors.
This is the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. website for the “Caribe Cafe” project:
These videos represent the students ideas and presentations by Team groupings. It also includes their proposals for the Company Corporate Christmas party.
The Project “Caribe Cafe”: A taste of the Islands commercials to promote the restaurant:
Group One’s Commercial for “Caribe Cafe”:
Not Available
Group Two’s Commercial for “Caribe Cafe”
Team Three’s Commercial for “Caribe Cafe”:
Not Available
Team Four’s Commercial for “Caribe Cafe”
Team Commercial for “Caribe Cafe”
These are the Team Presentations that were filmed by our AV Department for the class. Each Team presented their proposals to the audience of International investors in English and Spanish. I could tell the students were nervous but watching these videos again even I did not know these were a group of students. They became the Consultants that they were trained to be. I could not have been prouder of them.
The Group Presentations:
The Opening Remarks by CEO/Cofounder Justin Watrel
Group One:
Group Two:
Group Three:
Group Four:
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Corporate Christmas Project:
I was tired of giving traditional quizzes by this point of class, I decided to do something different for the class. I was so impressed by the competition between the student groups that I created this project where the students had to create a Corporate Christmas Party idea for a Partner who was impressed by their Team project. They had to create a Invitation, a menu with an appetizer, main dish, dessert and signature Christmas drink. They also had to create a greeting for Corporate in English and Spanish. These are their ideas:
I have been teaching “Marketing 201” at Bergen Community College for several years now and in the era of COVID, it has been especially difficult. With businesses shutting down never to reopen getting students to understand that business must go on and pivot is a difficult thing to do. You have to learn to adapt and survive or else everything fails.
This is happening in small downtowns all over the country. You have to learn to adapt, or you will fail. Things have gotten better though with the dropping of the mask mandates and businesses opening up.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of post-COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
This semester’s project “It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ: Being a Tourist in your own Town” was inspired by the success of the “Take me back to Paterson, NJ” project in 2019 and “Rocking it in Rutherford” in 2021. I loved how the students really had to learn about the history of the City of Paterson, the Borough of Rutherford and about New Jersey history in general. This is something not being taught in schools today.
The blog on Day One Hundred and Fifty-Five: “Take me back to Paterson, NJ” in 2019:
I chose Westwood, NJ this semester because of all the years spent shopping and eating in Westwood with my family who live in the Township of Washington the next town over and many of the long term businesses that dot the downtown shopping district. Downtown Westwood had more of a history to it and was picturesque with its old buildings, classic look of the train station dominating the downtown and a park with a band stand in Veterans Park in the heart of the downtown. It was a traditional downtown in New Jersey.
The town is on two major bus routes one into New York City as well as being a railroad head for New York City. The town has become more desirable for people moving out of New York City for more open space, better schools and the amenities that come with living in the suburbs. They still want a ‘citified’ atmosphere though with good restaurants, clean safe parks to relax in and a strollable downtown with lots to offer for both shopping and eating. Westwood, NJ has all of these.
I assembled the project together in two days after walking the downtown several times getting inspiration of how to market it and ideas that I had seen in the past in other towns of what they run at various times of the year drawing ideas from towns in the Hudson River Valley.
I entitled the project “It’s Wonderful in Westwood: Being a tourist in your own Town”, a creative approach to market the downtown for tourists to come visit from all over New Jersey and New York especially the City, the way Rhinebeck and Beacon do for dining, shopping and special events like “First Monday’s” and “Sinterklaas”.
The Project “It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ: Be a Tourist in your own Town”:
BCC-Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. 2022 Project It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ
When I presented the project, I got the usual moans and groans from some of the students and excitement from the others (it all depends on their position in the company and their enthusiasm in group projects). I got the Teams organized, had them meet up with one another and exchange emails and planned my field trip to Westwood, NJ as part of the project. It took some doing.
Two weeks later, I took my class on a field trip to Westwood, NJ to walk the downtown business district, to see where the Westwood Heritage Museum was located and to visit the shops and restaurants in the downtown area. The week in between me presenting the project and us visiting Westwood, NJ, I started to make contacts in the town.
I started by dropping off a copy of the project with City Hall and hoping to get the Mayor and Council involved the way we did in both Paterson and Rutherford, talking with the head of the Chamber of Commerce and then talking to merchants who I wanted to visit that included Hartly’s, a well known Women’s Store and Conrad’s, a very well-known Ice Cream and Candy store.
We really lucked out the day of the tour. It was a beautiful day but a little windy. We started out at the bandstand which is a symbol of the town. I never realized the historical significance that the bandstand had played in the town and in it’s history. It had been an important part of the social fabric of the town during the turn of the last century and still used for concerts today.
We were joined by the Honorable Beth Dell, the President of the Westwood Town Council and I thought this was a very nice honor that the town wanted to get involved in the beginning of the project. We really had a productive afternoon.
The tour of the downtown started in Veterans Park with the Team trying to figure out on how to create some of the activities that we would be creating such as the “Halloween in the Park”, the “Nick in Time” event and the “Jazz Summer Concert” events. We used the parks layout and logistics to figure out how to configure the usage of space. Before we toured the historic train station, we took our first in a series of corporate pictures.
Our Group picture at the Westwood Bandshell at the start of the tour (Councilwoman Dell and I to the right)
We continued on to the historic Westwood Train Station, which is the home to the Westwood Heritage Museum one day a month. It had not been operating recently because of COVID but I wanted the students to see the potential in how the museum could be updated and advertised to increase traffic.
The Train Station marker in Veterans Park
We toured the station and looked over the architecture and location of the station to understand why the location of the station has helped shape the way the downtown has been built around it.
The next part of the tour, we met with the head of the Westwood Chamber of Commerce at his business, Westwood Gallery, Michael Fitzsimmons. Mr. Fitzsimmons and I had met the week before and I knew how busy he would be so we had to plan the whole visit on a timely basis.
Not only did he spend a lot of time with us but introduced the class to members of ‘Celebrate Westwood”, a group of volunteers who help organize special events in the town. Talk about a productive and very engaging conversation on what both organizations do for the benefit of the town. The students, especially the Executive and Marketing Teams, gained a lot of knowledge and expertise from it.
Our second stop on the tour was a quick one through B & S Kitchen, an innovative sandwich shop a few doors down. I had just eaten lunch there the week before and thought that the food and selection of homemade soups were excellent. With a lunch special of a half a sandwich with a side of soup for $9.95, I saw this as an excellent business decision considering the quality of the food and service. It was so busy that morning the owners did not have a chance to talk to us but I was able to share my experience with the students while visiting there.
Our third stop on the tour was Hartly Fashion women’s store, which I think is one of the finest independent women’s clothing stores in the state. For a small store, it has some of the finest merchandise for work, parties and weddings. The service they have does not exist in stores anymore where salespeople will call you when items come in and will work with you on a personal one on one basis. Hartly is in a league all its own.
The manager, Jo and I had talked about the tour and I could tell she was a bit sceptical when I mentioned it but myself and the students came in, she captured the students attention on what quality and customer service meant to people. Especially when she described women travelling from places like Long Island, Manhattan and Connecticut to come shop in the store.
With pride, we walked through the store and were given a very detailed description on the type of customer that shopped here, what she was looking for in clothes and the attention to detail she would get in the shopping experience. It was a real eye-opener to many of the students who are completely online shoppers.
We walked the rest of the Downtown to Firemen’s Park and I discussed the pride that the town takes in its fire service and described my own time on the fire service and what a park like this means to the fire fighting community.
We toured the other side of Westwood Avene, the main street of the downtown and I discussed the amount of men’s and women’s clothing and accessory stores in the downtown area. You do not see this many clothing stores in one concentration in a downtown anymore being so close to the amount of malls we have in Bergen County. Westwood had become a destination for shopping and I discussed because of quality merchandise and good customer service these stores have thrived and propersed. To some of students, I could see this was alien to them. They were a generation where you pushed the button and it came to you.
I stopped by Pompilio’s Pizzeria at 223 Westwood Avenue to check on our lunch reservation on our way back to the train station. This is where I would be taking the Team for lunch that afternoon. With that taken care of, we made our last stop of the trip at Conrad’s Ice Cream and Candy store at 107 Westwood Avenue. I could tell for the students that was the best part of the tour. The owner Connie and the manager, Sue and the rest of the staff could not have been nicer or more accommodating to the students.
I just thought we would have a little talk on the history of the business and a small walk through but the ladies really gave the students a thorough talk on not just the history of the business but on how homemade ice cream and candy are both made (they are made on premise), how the family got involved in the business, how Connie’s son has now taken over the business and has been growing it, new product developments and how they handled COVID era shopping and how it changed the way the business is run (they now have food trucks for parties and events).
The ladies led a very engaging talk with the students, let them tour around the store and Sue ended the discussion with giving each student a small package of Conrad’s homemade caramel corn. I have never seen so many excited students! You would have thought they won the lottery. The students left so happy and I thought this was a very smart business move. Start to capture the customer while they are in the store. I found out later that many students revisited the store throughout the project.
The Conrad’s Ice Cream counter
The students used Conrad’s as the inspiration as for corporate gifts
We finished the tour with lunch at Pompilio’s Pizzeria at 223 Westwood Avenue. I have been coming to Pompilio’s Pizzeria since I was a freshman in high school when my aunt and uncle took us here for dinner when we were visiting them one summer. I also knew that they had ordered here a few times when we visited the house. Funny what you remember when you were a kid. The pizza is just as excellent as it was back in the 1980’s.
As tradition with the Town projects that make up the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. umbrella, I break bread with the students and this is my way of getting them to know one another. I found this very successful when we went to the Lunch Box in Paterson, NJ (now closed) as a group during our walking tour of Downtown Paterson and found it effective in Team building. I also get to know the students as well.
I ordered six large Cheese Pizzas and pitchers of soda and we just relaxed and reviewed our walking tour of the downtown area and how to better promote it for the town. The Team sat with their groups and brainstormed ideas over lunch. In the middle of lunch, the owner of Pompilio’s came out and discussed his family business with us and how his father’s family came from Italy and how they started the business in Westwood. I thought it was nice of the owner to come out and spend time with us seeing that he was so busy that afternoon. It was nice to see the merchants support this project.
The students created this new logo for the Town of Westwood, NJ:
The logo that was created for Westwood, NJ for ‘It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ: Be a Tourist in your own Town”
During class time, I tried to give the students as much time as I could but much of the work was done outside the classroom. Being a Hybrid class, I had to train the students to realize that class was not just in the one hour and fifteen minutes that we had in the classroom. This was lecture time and they needed to understand the theory of what they were doing, why they were doing it and how to understand the outcome. Most of them did very well in the academic part of the work.
The Saturday before the presentation, I took the students on a optional tour of the Westwood Heritage Museum, which is located in the Train Station of Westwood, NJ the second Saturday of every month. The Westwood Heritage Society sets the station up for visiting from 10:00am-12:00pm and I met the students at 10:30am at the museum. My entire Historical Team showed up along with about five other students which meant about half the class showed up.
The displays at the Westwood Heritage Society Museum in the Train Station
Westwood Heritage Society displays
The members of the Westwood Heritage Society gave us a tour of the museum, explained how it worked and how they set things up each month. Then they gave us a talk on the history of the town and the historical attributes of the downtown. The students got a feel for how the museum worked and how we could better promote it to the outside community.
The tour concluded with visit to the WWII bunker at the bottom of the train station. Both myself and the students were equally impressed by this.
As we prepared for the final touches on the presentation, the student Executives were nervous about the presentation. I had a very good Executive so I was not worried. I just wanted a good representation from the town.
We had to delay the presentation twice. Once because the Town Council asked if we would like to present it at City Hall and the Council was going to a conference the day of our presentation. Then it was delayed again because the day we were supposed to present it, it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and even I did not realize that we had the day off. So presentation day would be when we returned back from the Thanksgiving break, November 30th, 2022.
The day of the presentation I got there early so that I could set the room up for the presentation. I had the Reception to set up and make sure that everything in the room was working. My President and Senior Vice-President of Operations arrived early as well and then most of the Team showed up much earlier than class time. They wanted to get their groups settled in.
I also had to give the students their Dress Code grade and I have to say that I was annoyed when I saw two students wearing sneakers to the presentation. Trust me, they were graded accordingly. Every semester it is the same thing, the ladies always blow away the men.
We were joined that afternoon with Council President the Honorable Councilwoman Beth Dell, the Borough Administrator and another Councilwoman plus two members of the Westwood Heritage Museum whom we had met on a trip to the museum the previous Saturday. I thought it was very nice of all of them to come out and support the students.
The Presentation:
The Town Logo
The Historic Walking Project
The Town Song that was created and performed by student/songwriter Arnav Sharma
This is the presentation that everyone saw that afternoon:
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. “It’s Wonderful in Westwood: Be a Tourist in your own Town” website and Powerpoint presentation:
The Marketing 201 Executive Team the day of the Presentation on the Bergen Community College Paramus Campus with the Council women from Westwood, NJ:
The Paramus Executive Team for “It’s Wonderful in Westwood, NJ-Be a Tourist in your own Town” with Council members and guests.
The full Executive Team with members of Westwood City Council and members of the Westwood Heritage Society Museum
CEO and company Co-Founder Justin Watrel receiving a gift of a Conrad’s Chocolate Champagne bottle presented to him by Team Leader of Talent, Eva Sipos, of the Paramus Team.
The Commercials:
Here is the Team’s video Marketing the Town for Tourism in English and Spanish:
The Historical Team was tasked with creating a new video to promote the Historical Section of Westwood, NJ:
The Historical Team created this video to promote the Westwood Heritage Museum:
The Team created a new Town song for Westwood, NJ “The Hub”:
This is the Team Presentation of “It’s Wonderful in Westwood-Be a Tourist in your own Town” to the Honorable members of the Westwood Town Council and the Westwood Heritage Museum:
Part One:
Part Two:
Part Three:
This was one of the smoother presentations that I have had in the last two or three semesters. The students did an excellent job with the presentation. We had enough time for a question and answer session before the students had to leave for their next classes. Being an one hour class, we had to stay on a strict schedule. This differs from my night classes.
Still it was one hell of a presentation!
The Team to finish out their project arranged a company Christmas party for Corporate Headquarters. The students had to create an Invitation to the Party, A Christmas Poem, the Party Dinner menu and an original Christmas song. Here are the ideas:
I have been teaching “Introduction to Business 101” at Bergen Community College for several years now and in the era of COVID, it has been especially difficult. With businesses shutting down never to reopen getting students to understand that business must go on and pivot is a difficult thing to do. You have to learn to adapt and survive or else everything fails.
This is happening in small downtowns all over the country. You have to learn to adapt, or you will fail. Things have gotten better though with the dropping of the mask mandates and businesses opening up.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of COVID and online learning, I was lucky that I was able to teach one of the live classes on the Bergen Community College, Paramus Campus. It was such a pleasure welcoming students back to campus with live lectures and conversing with them.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo of the six trees
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations. I also challenge the students to top on another in their presentations and build on what they have seen others do in the past.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
This semester’s project “Rocking it in Rutherford: Being a Tourist in your own Town” was inspired by the success of the “Take me back to Paterson, NJ” project in 2019. I loved how the students really had to learn about the history of the City of Paterson and about New Jersey history in general. This is something not being taught in schools today.
The blog on Day One Hundred and Fifty-Five: “Take me back to Paterson, NJ” in 2019:
I chose Rutherford because it was the next town over from the Lyndhurst campus where I was teaching and the fact that Lyndhurst did not have a cohesive downtown area to promote. When I walked it, their downtown was in sections instead of one long stretch. Also, Downtown Rutherford had more of a history to it and was picturesque with its old buildings, classic look of an old church dominating the downtown and a park with a band shell at the top of the shopping district. There was more you could do with it.
The town is on two major bus routes one into New York City and one into Newark as well as being a railroad head for New York City. The town has become more desirable for people moving out of New York City for more open space, better schools and the amenities that come with living in the suburbs. They still want a ‘citified’ atmosphere though with good restaurants, clean safe parks to relax in and a strollable downtown with lots to offer for both shopping and eating. Rutherford has all of these.
I assembled the project together in two days after walking the downtown several times getting inspiration of how to market it and ideas that I had seen in the past in other towns of what they run at various times of the year drawing ideas from towns in the Hudson River Valley.
I entitled the project “Rocking it in Rutherford: Being a tourist in your own Town”, a creative approach to market the downtown for tourists to come visit from all over New Jersey and New York especially the City, the way Rhinebeck and Beacon do for dining, shopping and special events like “First Monday’s” and “Sinterklaas”.
The second week back from the Spring Break I presented the project and handed out the positions of the company and then explained the project. I go the usual ‘Yeahs’ and ‘groans’ from the students. I also got those panicked looks from the students who looked at me like they could never handle their position in the company. I would like to think as a CEO, I know them better than they know myself. After that, I had the Teams break up into their groups, met with my Executive Team and then met with the President and Senior Vice-President of Operations before they left for the night. It is always an interesting experience when meeting your Executive Team for the first time. They look nervous about being in charge.
The Project “Rocking it in Rutherford: Being a Tourist in your own Town”:
This all changes over the next few weeks as the students start up group chats and meet with one another after class. Then it was time to take the students out “into the field”. Right before COVID hit, I was going to take my class who were creating the project “From Revolution to Revelation-Visiting Historic Bergen County, NJ” out to visit historical sites, museums and farms all over the county. Then the virus hit, and we could not do any of that. I had seen how successful these field trips had been just by visiting our own campus or our trip to Downtown Paterson, NJ. I had to help the students overcome their fear of that city and see it gems and benefits.
I arranged for the students to take a field trip to Downtown Rutherford, NJ one night of class three weeks after the Spring Break. Of course, it has been raining the whole week and I asked the students in advance if they wanted to take the field trip even if there was a chance of rain. My Senior VP of Operations emailed me and said that people did not have a problem with it. It was the most rainy, miserable night to walk around a town!
We all met in class where I gave my speech about behaving themselves on a field trip and how they are representing Bergen Community College. That always helps. Then the heavens opened up on our way to the first stop, the First Presbyterian Church of Rutherford, an elegant church at the top of the downtown that was going to serve as the location for the “Snowflake Festival”.
The First Presbyterian Church of Rutherford at 1 East Passaic Avenue
The church was an example of Victorian architecture not seen today
I could not believe how beautiful this church was with it wooden carved benches, Tiffany windows and elegant pews. The whole church was done in carved wood and since it had an endowment to keep it up, the church was immaculate. It was one of those churches that you want to attend during the holidays to enjoy the pipe music and flowers. It also had lots of meeting spaces that were perfect for the project. I could tell that the students were impressed.
The inside the First Presbyterian Church of Rutherford is so elegant
After we left the tour of the church, we had to endure the elements and walk to Lincoln Park across the street to view the band shell for the “Big Band” concerts that we would be holding there in the month of August. I could not believe that most of the students were not carrying umbrellas (this is after I told them all to bring an umbrella with them twice). The rain was really coming down at that point.
We walked the park and I showed them how we could set the whole thing up and how operations could work. We could even use the meeting rooms at the church and their kitchen to cook the refreshments for the concerts. While we were finishing, one of the students snapped a group shot of us at the band shell.
My class at the Band Shell in Lincoln Park in Rutherford, NJ on that rainy night
After the tour of the band shell, we walked the entire side of the downtown going south with me pointing out historical points like the WWII Memorial at the circle and historic businesses like Varrelman’s Bake Shop at 60 Park Avenue (it was closed at this point of the evening). We then stopped at the railroad station and talked for a bit where there was a covering from the rain.
I explained how people could come into town by both rail and by bus where they did not need a car. This way people from other parts of New Jersey could join in the fun without having to look for parking.
Then we walked north up the other side of Park Avenue to our final destination, dinner at Da Mario Pizza at 25 Park Avenue for dinner. I had planned a pizza dinner for my class (which I pay for) which is a Team building event and also gives the students a chance to bond as a group. Plus, I feed them and on this gloomy night, they deserved it.
I ordered five large cheese pizzas and then let the students pick their beverages. I gave a little speech about the town and then about the project. We would be having another series of field trips to other places in town over the next few weeks while they worked on their project. They would also have to take trips to the town on their own. After that, I let the groups get together and work on their game plans for the project.
It was nice to just get out of the rain. I was hoping by the time we got out of the restaurant that the rain would stop. It poured more! After dinner, the Teams walked to the Williams Center to see the complex and I explained what would be happening in the future to the site with a new condo building and parking garage. It would bring more people to the downtown creating a new base of customers to the businesses downtown. Then I let them go home. It was a wet evening.
“Welcome to Rutherford” video promoting the attributes of the town
Over the next two weeks, there were two extra credit trips, one to the Meadowlands Museum on a Saturday so that the students could see the museum with time to visit all the exhibitions. The other trip was to City Hall for a Council Meeting to meet the Mayor and the Borough Council. Those were eye openers for not just the students but myself as well. These were the trips that I was to take with my students two years earlier to promote their projects before COVID shut us down. I could imagine the extra work that could have been done on those projects if the virus had not come.
I was able to arrange with the Meadowlands Museum, a small historical museum in Rutherford that concentrates on both the town and the County’s history from the Native Americans to the rise of the agriculture industry in Bergen County. I lead my class on a tour before class one Thursday evening and it was an eye-opener to students who lived nearby and never knew the museum existed.
We toured the first floor with its local art exhibition, communications display and section dedicated to a local doctor. Then to the second floor where children’s toys were located, the mining exhibition and a display of glowing minerals to show off New Jersey’s Mining past. Then it was to the basement level where spinning wheels, farm equipment and a turn of the last century kitchen was displayed. Some of the students had never seen displays like this before. After the tour, it was back to class for their quiz and lecture.
My class touring the Meadowlands Museum during class time
For the next three weeks, I gave the students class time to work with their Teams on the project and then on their own they revisited the town, created their commercials and put together their presentations.
The Historical tour of Rutherford, NJ brought to YouTube
On the night of April 28th, 2022, the students dressed in professional dress and presented their project to the Honorable Mayor Frank Nunziato and the Rutherford Borough Council. This is when I present a group of Generation Z students as Generation X consultants, and they are the executives of Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
Each group presented their part of the presentation to our invited guests and creatively introduced their section of the project. I could not have been prouder.
The PowerPoint Presentation of “Rocking it in Rutherford: Being a Tourist in your own Town”:
These videos of the presentation are available on YouTube:
The Introduction and the Talent Team:
My Introduction of the Project and the Talent Team Presentation
The Historical Team Presentation:
The Historical Team describes their ideas for the Historical Tour and updates at the Meadowland Museum
The Marketing Team Presentation:
The Marketing Team presented their ideas for Special Events and Advertising plus the new town song “Rutherford 07070”.
When the presentation was over, I could see that the Mayor and the Council as well as the Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce were blown away by the whole presentation. They were so impressed by the work that the student consultants did on the project. I had not seen the full presentation at that point and have to say that I was blown away as well.
Everyone had such great questions for the student consultants, and they were up for the challenge. I even had our Team Leader sing “Rutherford 07070” live to the Mayor and his Team and everyone enjoyed that.
The song “Rutherford 07070”
Each of the Council men and women got up and talked with each Team on their ideas and were very impressed by the thoroughness of the budgets and the realistic numbers that they presented. They even noted the student’s followed things like budgeting for the police and DPW for the Special Events. They also liked that everyone from locating our offices in the Rutherford area to using downtown restaurants for catering and for our company “Wrap Up” party. Everyone got a chance to give the student consultants their input on the project.
After the presentation, the Mayor and the Council along with the Vice-President of the Rutherford Chamber of Commerce took a group shot with my class and that meant a lot to me. It showed both myself and the students that they took the presentation seriously.
My Business 101 student consultants with the Mayor and Council and Chamber of Commerce of Rutherford, NJ
After we finished, I had a light reception for the students, their families and our invited guests. It was a nice evening, and I was so proud of my students. It was another group that has now entered to the Alumni of “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.” (Acronym for Bergen Community College-Paramus Campus).
I went to Heights Bar & Grill that evening to celebrate their success. It had been a long semester in the post-COVID era. We overcame the difficulties with masks and stress and achieved the goal! This is when a thin-crusted pizza and a drink taste even better.
The Creation of the Case Study Project “Market Street Candy & Confections”:
I have been teaching “Introduction to Business 101” at Bergen Community College for several years now and in the era of COVID, it has been especially difficult. With businesses shutting down and reopening in a different business environment, I think some of my students thought it was an unusual time to open a business. This is when you need to test your entrepreneurship when times are tough.
In my live classes, I open my consulting company, “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.”, for business and the whole class bands together and we have one big project. In the era of COVID and online learning, these projects become impossible to do as a group so each student got the opportunity to create their own store.
In the past, I have created these projects under the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. banner, the main consulting company, the Orion Malls banner, a Mall design company and the Buscomonzefi.com banner, my Tech Division. Each business does its best to be creative, forward thinking and have a thought producing presentations.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Consultant Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
While my other class worked on their case study project, “I’ve got a Golden Ticket to Bergen Community College-Homecoming 2022”, a full-blown Group project for my live class, I had my online class create their own business with the project “Market Place Candy & Confections”, a artisan candy and dessert shop that is a 100-year-old business they bought and are now reopening with a modern twist.
Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Presents: “I’ve got a Golden Ticket to Bergen Community College-Homecoming 2022”
The concept of the project was to reopen a traditional candy shop in a town or city that had recently closed and the furnishings and decorations were sold off for profit to pay bills, so the building and store were now gutted and had to be rebuilt and redesigned with a modern twist and concept. They had to now had to know their target market, stock the store with product and prepare it for opening by hiring staff and creating an ad for the “100th Anniversary Celebration” of the store.
The students now had the store and name of the store but little else to start with other than a past reputation. Here I had the students use their creativity to remake the store from the ground up. Our textbook for the class “Understanding Business” by Nickels & McHugh broke the way you start a business chapter by chapter and that is what I had the students do to open the store.
We start the project by Chapter Five in the book “How to form a Business” when talking about starting a business as a “Sole Proprietorship or Partnership” and then to Chapter Six “Entrepreneurship and Starting a Small Business” with logos and Brand Recognition. I challenge the students to show me what they want their store to represent and what type of imagine that they want to portray to the customers. I remind them that this is the first thing that the customers will see and remember them by.
The logos for “Market Street Candy & Confections”:
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo One
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo Two
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo Three
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo Four
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo Five
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo Six
Market Street Candy & Confections: Logo Seven
We next covered Chapter Seven “Management and Leadership” where we worked on the goals and objectives of a business. This is where the students worked on their strategic planning of the business. When we talk about who we strive to be as a business, this is when we form the Mission Statement, which is an outline of the fundamental purposes of an organization.
The Mission Statements:
Mission Statement: One
Mission Statement: Two
We discussed in Chapter Eight “Structuring Organizations for Today’s Challenges”, where we talked about the hierarchy of a corporation and then Chapter Nine “Production and Operational Management”, where we learned about concepts of Facility Location, where we have to select the location for the company’s operations. When creating the concept, I also have them design what the inside of the store should look like to the customer.
The Market Street Candy & Confections Store Design:
Market Street Candy & Confections: Store Design One
Market Street Candy & Confections: Store Design Two
Market Street Candy & Confections: Store Design Three
Market Street Candy & Confections: Store Design Four
Chapter Thirteen “Marketing: Helping Buyers Buy” with selling concepts of merchants. We talked about target markets, geographic segmentation and consumer marketing. I was trying to get the students to how to reach out to customers.
We started by advertising the store for its “100th Anniversary Celebration” is a way to bring more customers into the store to let them see the new developments they would be making. We built this even further in Chapter Fourteen “Developing and Pricing Goods and Services”, when picking or creating product lines for a company.
The Market Street Candy & Confections Bundling & 100th Anniversary Ads:
Market Street Candy & Confections: 100th Anniversary Ad One
Market Street Candy & Confections: 100th Anniversary Ad Two
Market Street Candy & Confections: 100th Anniversary Ad Three
Market Street Candy & Confections: 100th Anniversary Ad Four
Market Street Candy & Confections: 100th Anniversary Ad Five
Market Street Candy & Confections: 100th Anniversary Ad Six
When discussing Chapter Fourteen, I also had the students create a Bundling promotion of putting two or more items together and promoting them at one price but I have no artwork for that. With Chapter Sixteen “Using Effective Promotions”, I asked them how this anniversary event might promote new items at the store and what classic candies they might want to carry.
The last project that unfortunately I was not able to give them because of the Thanksgiving Break and the way it fell was from Chapter Eleven “Human Resource Management: Finding and keeping the Best Employees”, the Job Description project, where they would create an ad for hiring new employees. The deadlines for the project just got too close.
By the end of the semester, about a third of the class successfully opened their store for business with a location of the town where they bought the business, their created image, the product that they wanted to sell and the people they wanted to hire. They were then ready for opening day for the “100th Anniversary of the Store”.
It always amazes me what these students are thinking and where they want to take their businesses. Some of them look ready to open the store in real life. That is when this project gets to be interesting and fun.
This was an interesting project that I want to share with other College Professors who might want to rework and use the project if they teach an Introduction to Business class as well:
mywalkinmanhattan 