The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Spring 2024 Executive Team for the “Bergen 250: Visiting the Garretson Forge & Farm” project.
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 thought back to our project last semester on the Bergen County Historical Society and the success it was and how impressed both myself and the Executive Board of the Bergen County Historical Society both were that evening.
The Project “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. presents “Touring at the Bergen County Historical Society”:
I think a lot of these historical sites do not get the attention they deserve and with the 250 Anniversary of the Revolutionary War happening in two years, these wonderful sites needed to be showcased. They needed to dusted off, revamped and a fresh perspective was needed to tell their story. This is where the project for the “The Bergen 250: Tourism at the Garretson Forge & Farm” came from.
The project “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. presents “Bergen 250-Touring the Garretson Forge & Farm”:
That and the tour the former President gave me during the holiday season when I begged to see the Christmas decorations for the Sinterklaas celebrations were still up. I needed pictures for my blog, “VisitingaMuseum.com” and “MywalkinManhattan.com”.
My blog on Touring the Garretson Forge & Farm on VisitingaMuseum.com:
When I toured the home during the holidays, I approached them on using the home as a future project and she seemed to like the idea. This is where the partnership for the project came from.
Our first visit to the site was on “Pea Day” in March 2024 for an extra credit assignment to start the project off so that the students could see the grounds and experience the farm and its attributes.
Visiting the Garretson Forge & Farm in Fair Lawn, NJ for “Pea Day”
Visiting the farm house and gardens on “Pea Day”
The volunteers planting at the Garretson Forge & Farm on “Pea Day”.
Observing the Master Gardeners and Volunteers on “Pea Day”.
The students coming in on their day off to attend “Pea Day”
Everyone took turns getting their hands dirty on “Pea Day”
We also had a special field trip to the Garretson Forge & Farm on class day so that everyone could tour the farm and the farmhouse. Outside “Pea Day”, it was the first time anyone in my class had ever visited the site.
We started the tour on a rather gloomy night. We had just had a rain storm but that did not stop our visit. Our whole class attended the trip (it is a mandatory part of both the project and the class) and it was a interesting tour for all of us.
Our host was the President of the Friends group that helps raise money for the site. We started the tour after the rain storm with a trip through the barns to see some of the old farm equipment. The were some interesting artifacts that included farm plows and horse drawn articles to carriages and sleds.
Then we toured the gardens where the volunteers had just finished the plantings of the summer fruits and vegetables. The President explained that the fruits and vegetables that were grown here were donated to a soup kitchen in Paterson. I thought this was a great idea.
Then were toured the farmhouse, which I had just been to for a private tour during the holidays. The kitchen was set up for a harvest meal now and I explained to some of the students how food was cooked back then in the hearth.
Then we toured the small museum and looked at the family tree, where generations of Garretson’s had lived. Our last stop on the tour of the farmhouse was the main living room where the Sinterklass event was held and many of the talks on domestic life on the farm.
This is where we concluded the tour and many students asked questions about life at that period of time. After the tour was over, I took the students out to dinner as part of their Team Building. It is important for the students to get to know one another.
The start of the tour near the barns.
Our tour of the grounds, the barns and life on the farm.
The grounds near the second barn. Touring the gardens at twilightTour of the kitchen.
Discussing the expression “Sleep tight don’t let the bed bugs bite” and where it came from.
Discussion on the second floor.
The second floor had been added on years later.
Discussion on farm living.
Discussing the furnishings and how the farmhouse ran as a farm and a home.
Continuing our discussion of life on the farm.
Talking about life on the farm.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. tour of the site.
Our group shot with President of the Garretson Forge & Farm April Barth.
After the tour was over, I took my class to Bella Vita Pizzeria in Fair Lawn, NJ for their first Corporate dinner and Team building exercise. The dinner was wonderful, and the pizza was excellent. It really warmed us up after a cold night of touring and the students seemed to enjoy getting to know each other over a hot pizza dinner.
Bella Vita Pizzeria at 1761 River Rd A, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410:
My Teams dining together at a “Corporate” pizza dinner.
The company Team dining together that night.
The aspect of dining together is an important part of the Team Building exercise and you can tell by the pictures that my students enjoyed it.
The next few weeks were preparing the project for the presentation. We had a visit from Vivian Davis, who I had known for years from working in the Division of Disability Services when she was one of our speakers. She now was running the “Bergen 250: The 250th Anniversary of the Revolutionary War in Bergen County” and we had incorporated part of this in the project. I had given her a copy of the project and she came into the class to discuss what she was planning and the significance of the Revolutionary War had on the towns in Bergen County. It was a real history lesson on some of the towns in Bergen County and some of the historical homes and sites in Bergen County.
This project was a bit more intense than my morning class. While they designed the rigors of the Bergen Room Bistro, my evening class was putting together an entire game plan of Revolutionary War events for the ‘Bergen 250’.
I had the students working on an Independence Day event, a Children’s Walking tour of the property, a Mid Summer dinner with a Revolutionary War themed dinner, a continuation of the Sinterklaas event that would extend visiting the decorations in the house another two weekends and then a new Digital Marketing campaign for the site with a commercials and posters.
The night of the presentation on April 24th, it all came to life. The students each showed the PowerPoints with their ideas, menus and commercials to promote the site. They really had some interesting ideas.
Finishing the evening with my Student Consultants was great. The students were so excited to finish and I have to admit it was quite the journey for me too. It was a lot of work (and money) to pull this event off but it went by well. The Board of the Garretson Forge & Farm really seemed to enjoy it and asked lots of questions.
Vivian Davis, who is running the “Bergen 250″ asked the most important question of the night, if I was to run all of these events, would your age group come?” This got the students thinking and one said, “We are a busy group with college and work. If you want our age group to come, you are going to have to cater to things we like.” I thought that was fair and gave her something to think about as well.
We then took our Board picture. I am always so proud of my Student Executive Consultants. They come dressed for work.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. “Bergen 250″: Garretson Forge & Farm” Executive Team.
I want to thank my President of the Team Project, President TJ Fischer and SVP of Operations Camila Alvarado and the entire Team of Vice-Presidents, Team Leaders and Team Members for tackling this very difficult and very detailed job of promoting this wonderful historical site with such detail.
The questions on the project were excellent and direct and audience was very impressed by how thorough the project was done that evening. To all my Student Consultants, you did an excellent job!
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.
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 “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:
The students of my Business 101 class keep dazzling me.
The Creation of the Case Study Project “I’ve got a Golden Ticket to Bergen Community College-Homecoming 2022”:
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.
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.
What I discovered later on is that we were the only class on campus that night and it was pretty gloomy walking the halls all by myself late on a Friday evening. The upside of all of this is that we had the whole campus to stretch out in and later in the class I changed rooms to a more formal lecture room for the presentation. I thought this was more COVID safe for the students.
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.
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO & Consultant Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
My welcome to Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. from the CEO of the company:
While my other class worked on their case study project, “Market Street Candy & Confections”, a 100-year-old candy store concept, “I’ve got a Golden Ticket to Bergen Community College-Homecoming 2022”, a project promoting Bergen Community College to the Alumni got off to the ground running.
In a class that has to stay socially distanced and met only once a week it got difficult.
Our Logo from the novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by author Ronald Dahl.
“I’ve got a Golden Ticket to Bergen Community College”
Every semester it is the same thing with the students. Some take the project seriously and some think it is a chore and go back to looking at their cellphones the whole semester. As usual, those are the students whose work shows it and gets the lower grades.
When I put my executive team together this semester, I found a nice combination of students who really worked well together. How I choose my executives is the same way any CEO would, I get a copy of their resume which serves as my first paper for the class. I work with the students to be sure that their resume is ready for future job interviews and internships or transfers to another four-year school. This is where I can see where the students experience lies and what skills they can perform.
The second paper I have the students write is “What would I do Better?”, a two-page paper on a situation on a job or extra-curricular activity that went terribly wrong and how they might have fixed it. The paper always shows me how the student would handle adversity under pressure. It also shows me the student’s character. This is how I pick my executives plus I use my gut instinct on how they act in class. Almost 95% of the time, I am correct.
The students I chose for my Executive Team were all Bi or Tri-Lingual, all were pretty ambitious and I thought had a sense of creativity. One of my Executives went AWOL after the second class and one of his Team Members took over the VP roll. I could not have asked for a more prepared student of the role of Vice-President. This is when students can surprise you with their flexibility and creativity under pressure.
So, every week we had Board Meetings to check progress and see how each Team was performing and getting their work done. I always have my procrastinators but for the most part everything was handled on time and towards the last two weeks I saw the students ban together to get the work done. Still, I had a few students either go AWOL or just drop the class and that was it so there was some rearranging to do along the way. This is what happens in a real corporation, so it was just like real life.
The night of the presentation, it was nice to see the students all dressed up. All the women looked so professional in suits, skirts, slacks and dresses while most of the men were in either suit and tie or jacket and tie. I few I will have to teach how to iron a shirt or tie a tie correctly.
I could not have been prouder of my student executives on their presentation. They put together a wonderful presentation in promoting Bergen Community College to Alumni and students, promoting our Athletic program with student athletic and parent events with Alumni attendance and meals that would bring Alumni together in the “Bulldog” tradition. All throughout the presentation we kept the “Willy Wonka” theme in all of our events.
What really impressed me was the touching dedication to the late Gene Wilder, the star of the original 1971 film from the Executives to both him and his widow, Susan Wilder. I think that showed the heart of the project of how much this film means to people.
Congratulations everyone on this excellent project and Happy New Year!
*Please watch and read the different parts of the project to see its progress.
The Project:
“I’ve got a Golden Ticket to Bergen Community College-Homecoming 2022”
The Creation of the Case Study “Scoops & Sundaes”:
Every semester when I am teaching “Introduction to Business 101” at Bergen Community College, I have my class create a major class project in which the whole class becomes part of an Executive team of a mythical company. This way the class benefits from getting to know one another and starting to form their connections with each other both professionally and as a student body.
In the past we created Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc., my main company that I have used for the last three semesters, Orion Malls Inc., a Mall design firm and Buscomonzefi.com, my Tech company. Each was an example of how a business team needs to interact with one another and create their part of the business. It has been tough since we took our live classes to online classes so I refigured the project to an individual basis and asked each student to create one project from their standpoint.
The Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. corporate logo
Professor Justin Watrel, CEO Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.
I had the class work on their project “Scoops & Sundaes”, an artisan ice cream shop. While my other class worked on their business project “Mother Goose’s Toy Chest” (See Day One Hundred and Ninety Six), the members of this class created an interesting shop many carrying homemade ice cream, baked items and gift products.
Day One Hundred and Ninety Six-“Mother Goose’s Toy Chest”
Using the textbook “Understanding Business” by William Nickels and James and Susan McHugh as our guide, we covered chapter by chapter on how to build a small business. Each student was asked to create their own store concept by reading Chapter Five “How to Form a Business” and Chapter Six “Entrepreneurship and Starting a Small Business”. We started the project when I assigned the concept and the first extra credit project by creating the logo for the store.
Here is some of the creativity of the logo’s for the store:
Logo One: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Logo Two: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Logo Three: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Logo Four: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Logo Five: “Scoops & Sundaes”
When we studied Chapter Seven “Management & Leadership” I had them create their Mission Statement to tell me who they were as a store owner and as a company. We then studied Chapter Eight “Structuring Organizations for Today’s Challenges” and Chapter Nine “Production and Operations Management”, I had them design their store layout and how they would show how it would work.
Store Design: “Scoops & Sundaes”
I gave a long lecture on Chapter Ten “Motivating Employees” and Chapter Eleven “Human Resources” to help the students understand that they can’t do it all themselves. There will be a point in the business where they will need to hire a few part timers for the Summer and Christmas holidays months when things get busy. Who are they looking for? What characteristics do they want in an employee? This lead to me asking them to create an ad for a Job Description. Looking for the perfect employee can be tough.
In Chapter Fourteen “Developing and Pricing Goods and Services”, I had the students think about promotions and how to sell multiples to help increase the bottom line and then in Chapter Sixteen “Using Effective Promotions”, when we studied ‘word of mouth’ and ‘sampling’ I had the students work on a Bundling Ad top promote their goods for sale as a promotion. This helped them understand how to increase sales in a tough COVID economy. I also had create a menu for their store as well. How will you stock your store and with what items?
Some of the menus they created were very clever:
The prototype for Menu One: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Menu Two: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Menu Three: “Scoops & Sundaes”
Some of the promotions for the “Bundling of Products” were highly effective. I had to explain to the students that Bundling is taking different products and promoting them a certain price point to make them seem more cost effective to buy in a grouping as McDonald’s does with their “Extra Value Meals”. Try to imagine if you had to buy the products on an individual basis.
Their ideas were very clever.
Bundling Ad for “Scoops & Sundaes”
The students earned extra credit for creating their Logos , The Mission Statement, their Menu, the Store Design, A Job Description and a Bundling Ad. Some students took full advantage of the project and the extra credit and it resulted in good grades.
To finish the project, I assigned their final two papers to discuss how they developed the project and then what they learned from it. For the most part the class understood and had a good time building their business.
Who knows, we may see a “Scoops & Sundaes” chain in the future.
Here is the supporting work for the project:
The Class Participation Questions to help build the project “Scoops & Sundaes”:
The Creation of the Case Study Project “Mother Goose’s Toy Chest”:
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, 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, “Scoops & Sundaes”, an artisan ice cream shop (Day One Hundred and Ninety-Five), I decided to have this group of students create a shop based on the increases we are seeing in the toy industry of traditional playthings. It seems in the era of COVID, people want puzzles, board games and dolls and stuffed animals again. I have watched my Mattel stock double and Hasbro has been increasing as well.
The “Scoops & Sundaes” case study project: Day One Hundred and Ninety-Five:
I created the concept of the toy store, “Mother Goose’s Toy Chest” based on the all the wonderful little artisan toy stores I have visited over the years, showcasing one of kind merchandise made by local artists and specialty manufactured goods by small companies. I also asked the students to think about imported goods handmade from other countries and add in supporting small manufactures here in the states. I wanted to promote American made products.
Using the textbook, “Understanding Business” by William Nickels and James and Susan McHugh, we studied and covered every chapter in the book. By Chapter Five “How to Start a Business”, I had the students start the project and introduced the store concept. I gave a WebEx lecture on starting a business and my expectations for the project. Then I assigned the first extra credit project for the assignment, creating a logo for the store.
Here are some of my favorites:
Logo One: Mother Goose’s Toy Chest
Logo Two: Mother Goose’s Toy Chest
Logo Three: Mother Goose’s Toy Chest
We then moved onto Chapter Six on “Entrepreneurship” and I asked the students what types of products they would like to sell in the store and how they might want the store designed. I then asked them create a ‘Mission Statement” to tell me as a consumer who they wanted to be in the marketplace.
Chapter Seven had the students thinking about ‘Management and Leadership’ skills. Who did they want to be as a business owner? What type of leadership skills would they need? Chapter Eight had the students studying about “Production and Operations Management” and I then had the students create their store layout.
We next moved on to who your staff would be in Chapter Ten “Motivating Employees” and Chapter Eleven “Human Resource Management” and how you would recruit them? I then had the students create a Job Description to find the perfect employee for the store that they needed when it got busy or during the holiday season.
I had the students thinking about merchandise for the store in Chapter Thirteen “Marketing: Helping Buyers Buy”. I asked the students to create a Birthday Party/Summer Camp Registry” for the store so that children could pick out things for their events and get the items they want for each.
In Chapter Sixteen “Using Effective Promotions” I had the students create a ‘Bundling Ad’ to promote a grouping of products for sale at the store. How could they use a grouping of products at a discounted price to promote the store.
To explain the concepts of “Sexual Harassment” on the job, I used the movies “9 to 5” and “How to Succeed in Business without even Trying” as examples of how to deal with and recognize these issues.
“A Secretary is not a Toy” is the clip that I like to use to explain this.
By the end of the class, I saw many different ways of looking at the business that was created as each student put their own touches on it. Some had their businesses in New York City, some in the New Jersey suburbs, some went to malls or strip malls and some opened in local downtowns. Others went out of town to places like Orlando and San Jose, CA.
Their selection of toys went from the classics such as board games, Barbies and puzzles to more upscale selections of handmade and one of kind objects. I had to remind them that they had to be realistic as they needed to make a profit to pay the bills.
On their final exam, I had them look at the famous scene from the movie “Big” to ask how the use of “Product Placement” of FAO Schwarz Toy Store in the famous film promoted the store. It got some interesting answers.
The famous “Piano” scene from the movie “Big”
I thought this scene would motivate the students.
Overall I was impressed by their projects but was surprised by how many students did not take advantage of the extra credit projects as I would like to have visually have seen what the students were thinking in their ideas.
It was another wonderful project under the independent “Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc.” banner to promote Entrepreneurship and a sense of business creativity.
The Project “Mother Goose’s Toy Chest”:
The Class Participation Questions and Quizzes I used:
I had the most interesting semester for Spring Term at the college where I work. Everything started off fine. We had classes in the afternoon, good discussions on Marketing and had a very successful Team Project marketing the Lyndhurst Snack Shop, the new Bulldog Cafe, for business (See Day One Hundred and Fifty-Nine in MywalkinManhattan.com):
I had just handed out the next Team Project, “From Revolution to Renewal: Exploring the Historic Bergen County”, a major tourism project I wanted to the students to work on for the remainder of the semester the week before the break. I had the students to break up into groups and get to know one another and get their game plans in order before the Midterm. We had only one class to introduce the project and they set their group chats up and introduced themselves. The next week I gave the Midterm and then left for the Spring Break.
The Easton Tower in 2024
Our Logo:
Easton Tower is located in Paramus, NJ right next to the Garden State Plaza. It was the theme for our project “From Revolution to Renewal: Exploring Historic Bergen County”.
This project had been inspired by a couple of things. One was the fact that many of these students did not know their own County. They knew nothing of its history let alone had ever really explored it. It amazed me how many of them did not know the history of the towns they lived in and if there was a well-known cultural site in the town they lived in they never visited it. A few students said to me when I asked had they visited this or that in their town the answer always seemed to be “well I passed it but never really noticed it.”
Another thing that inspired the project was the Northwest Bergen Historical Coalition. Every year this historical group runs a “History Day” for the historical sites of northwest Bergen County. When I asked a friend who worked for the County why they did not have a weekend with all the sights in Bergen County, she said that it would be too difficult to put together. That was what I needed to hear to put this project together. To prove that it could be done.
It wasn’t just that. Many of the these sites were never visited and some were only open once or twice a year to visitors because their volunteers were getting too old. Many people were not taking these sites seriously in the role they played in not just the formation of the County but the United States. When you really read the history of the people who lived there or what the site meant, it was interesting to see what role it played in the history of Bergen County.
As I said in my previous blog on my Introduction to Business class creating the Ambassador Program, it was a harder go with my Essentials in Marketing class. They were a younger group who did not know much about the history of Bergen County let alone their own towns. I had poised the question many times in class about where they had visited in the County and mentioned many historical sites in towns which they lived in. Only a few had ever visited them or if they had had been way back in elementary school when it was considered part of a school field trip.
This is when I created “From Revolution to Renewal: A Historical Weekend in Bergen County, NJ”. This would be a two day weekend with an opening private cocktail party of the Arts Community and VIP’s followed by a two day tour of all of Bergen County’s historical sites with side trips to our wonderful historical restaurants and a scavenger hunt to wrap it all up.
I had started to arrange a series of field trips that we were going to take over the last week of school and the first week of Spring Break. I had planned a trip to Downtown Hackensack, NJ to see the Courthouse, visit two Dutch Reformed Churches and the cemeteries and then visit White Mana, a very well-known hamburger place that has been around since the 1940’s.
The Bergen County Courthouse, The Green and the Dutch Reformed Church in Downtown Hackensack, NJ
Our second field trip was going to be to The Pascack Historical Society, the Dutch Reformed Church, the Wortendyke Barn and then a tasting at Demarest Farms, a well known farm stand in Hillsdale, NJ.
The Pascack Historical Society in Oakland, NJ
The inside of the Pascack Valley Historical Society
Another field trip that I started to look into was the Aviation Hall of Fame in Teterboro, NJ and then a tasting at Spindler’s Bakery and Lovey’s Pizzeria in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ and then on to Mills Bakery in Wood Ridge, NJ.
I was doing this while running in and out of New York City for the Restaurant Show and a Michigan State University Alumni Night for the Big Ten Championship game against Ohio State University. I was just getting everything organized and then planning a quick trip to visit my mother when all hell broke loose and the government started to shut everything down. From a Wednesday Membership Night at the Met Breuer to a Thursday morning shut down of New York City and all air travel to Europe, the world changed.
Our Spring Break was extended a week to see what the State of New Jersey was going to do with the educational system and with that at the end of the week we were informed that we would not be returning to school. Not only did that mean no field trips it meant no more live class and I would not be seeing my students again. I was not sure how like my other class we were going to pull this project off.
None of my students had visited practically any of these sites or been to any of the restaurants on the project. Almost everything was closed. You could see some of the sites like the churches and memorials from the street but everything inside was closed. Everything would have to be done online.
The one thing I did have was belief in the class that they could do the work. I had been so impressed by their work on the Snack Shop project that I knew they could do the work. It was the intense research that would have to be done online. A crisis is when you see the best in people. I did.
While my other class had a better head start of the Student Ambassador Project, my Historic Bergen County Team had a lot of ingenuity. The one thing they didn’t know was the history of Bergen County, NJ. I could have asked them to visit some of the sites around the County which would not have been hard as the Reformed Dutch churches could be seen from the sidewalks as well as the cemeteries that surrounded them.
Places like the Camp Merrill Memorial and the Baylor Massacre site were open to the public in obscure areas and not in big parks that would have been closed during the pandemic so it would have been no problem visiting them. I did not want to put anyone at risk of anything at this time so I nixed them leaving their homes. I just did not want to be responsible for anyone getting sick.
Once we realized that we were not returning, I started to contact the President and Senior Vice-President of Operations who I chose for the project and started to get underway. Just like my other class, the students all had their own situations. Some students got sick, some just did not communicate with me, some had changes in their family situations and some had communications problems with me. On top of all of this, the Teams of Student Consultants regrouped and really worked their butts off to make it work.
The Talent Team who was responsible for setting up the salaries and benefits for the three-month Division formation had already started doing their work. They had found the location for the office before the break and had a lot of ideas they were contemplating during the break. Since the two Teams of students from Paramus and Lyndhurst would not be meeting up as I had originally planned, I had the Lyndhurst Team develop their own unique plan for their Division of the company.
The Talent Division set up their office design, created a Wrap Up party for the Division, created a set of ‘perks’ for the Division staff and developed a very fair package of benefits for the staff (see their website below).
The Marketing Division I created for the Team Project had the bulk of the work. I broke the Division down into three sections:
The Historical Museums/Parks/Homes & Zoo Division was responsible doing the research on every historic tourist site in the County. This included the historical homes, churches, parks, cemeteries, monuments and the zoo. They had to do the research on each and then for the website put together a small bio on them so that tourists could find them when using the website on their smartphones. This also included a Scavenger Hunt in the buildings that they had never been inside of before.
They also had to set up a cocktail party opening event at The Gallery Bergen, our on campus art gallery at Bergen Community College. The cocktail party was being created for Museum Curators, Historians, members of the Arts Community, Artists and VIP’s from the County.
The second Division was the Historical Restaurant Division whose job it was to find restaurants all over the County that predated 1980. We were looking showcase well-known restaurants with years of longevity in the County that were well-known not just in the community but around the country with foodies. Places like White Mana in Hackensack, NJ and Hiram’s Hot Dogs in Fort Lee, NJ.
The Third Division of the Marketing Team was the History Division whose job it was to research Bergen County’s History from the Lenape Settlements with the Dutch to the Revolutionary War to World War II. Bergen County played such a huge role in all the wars from setting up and training troops to munitions being developed here to battle grounds between the wars.
They were also responsible for researching a list of the ‘first family’s’ of Bergen County. People like the Zabriskie’s, the Demerest’s, the Terhune’s and the Haring’s played a big part not just in the development of Bergen County but in the formation of the United States especially during the Revolutionary War.
The Marketing Division itself was responsible for creating the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. websites for the client that were eventually merged into one. The Marketing Team would be gathering information from the three Teams that made up the Division and create the site for tourists and residents who were going to attend the three-day History Event.
They were also responsible for filming two commercials. One commercial would be on the role of Bergen County in the United States foundation from the Revolutionary War to World War II.
The Team’s commercial on the ‘History of Bergen County’ for “From Revolution to Renewal-A Historical Weekend in Bergen County, NJ”
The second would be inviting people to come to visit Bergen County and all it has to offer:
The Team’s commercial on “Welcoming people to Bergen County, NJ” in many languages for “From Revolution to Renewal-A Historical Weekend in Bergen County, NJ”
This was a very extensive project, and I could not wait to come back to school after the break and start the project. When I took my students ‘out into the field’ (i.e. field trips) to the location, these projects made more sense to the class. The field trips to Paterson, NJ and to the Snack Shop on the Bergen Community College Lyndhurst, NJ campus resulted in extremely creative work and the students being able to see first hand what it was they were marketing. This would be put to the test when we did not return to the college.
I have to say of all my classes, I have never seen a collective of students regroup and get the job done. The Talent Team was very diligent and got their work done on a timely basis. My senior executives for that division lead their Team and created a game plan to get their job accomplished.
It was much harder in our Historical Division in that there was a lot of research to do with each site, restaurant and family that had to be carefully explored and researched in detail. It was not so easy with no access to certain books as all libraries were shut down and not everything was on an eBook.
Almost all the restaurants on the list were not open at the time of the project (a lot of them have since opened for take-out only) and since this was a younger group of students, they did not know a lot of the restaurants that had been opened for years. Here I was able to assist as a CEO and be able to add to the project. With the help of my aunt, who had lived in Bergen County since the 1950’s, we were able to create a list of about thirty five restaurants, candy and ice cream stores and bakeries all over Bergen County that tourists and residents alike would enjoy when they were touring on the Historical Weekend.
Still we were able to create an interesting commercial on the restaurants that were open since before the 1970’s. Here is the commercial for “Historic Restaurants of Bergen County” that the students put together:
This commercial really highlights the older restaurants of Bergen County, NJ.
Since all the cemeteries and churches were off limits for the duration of the project (they have now started to open), everything had to be done online by the help of Google. All the wonderful historic cemeteries that we were going to tour in Ridgewood, Hackensack, Dumont and Bergenfield were closed to us and I would not be able to show the significance of the families and how they intertwined with marriage.
The Dutch Reformed Church and cemetery on the Green in Hackensack, NJ
It was a rough first two weeks as communication was limited to just campus email but as things like Zoom and WebEx video conferencing started to be introduced then we were raring to go. My students were already group chatting and video conferencing with each other before my training was over and then it was ‘Zooming’ in meetings for the rest of the semester.
Some of my students needed to learn how to time prioritize and some of them needed to take their work much more seriously but when I read their final papers on the project, I realized that was not always so easy.
Some students were taking care of loved ones who were sick or had been sick themselves, some had multiple classes and not much access to computers and had professor’s like myself emailing them all the time so they got over-whelmed. It was a real challenge but I knew this Team of Student Consultants was up for the sense of self-accomplishment.
For the next three weeks before the Monday, April 27th presentation, I have never emailed so many people so many times answering questions, trying to find information and trying to guide people to doing their best work.
One of the attributes I let the students use was my blog site, VisitingaMuseum.com:
This way it would save them time in their research. I had found when I was putting the site together that many of these smaller historical sites in Bergen County did not even have their own websites. We also discovered as a Team that there was no site in the County or in the State that showed off all of Bergen County attributes.
To add to the historical sites and the historical restaurants, I had all the students in both classes do research on every town in Bergen County to add to the website. This way it would tie everything you needed to know about the County with the families, where they lived, who they were, how they played a role in the development of the County, the towns that they lived in and by the way when you are visiting all the great long service restaurants to dine at for the weekend.
All of this was a major challenge as the Team had never put a website together and the one that the mythical client, the New Jersey Historical Guild of Bergen County, had wanted had an interactive map. This all had to be created from scratch.
I am not sure what went on behind the scenes as I was not privy to the Group Chat but I could tell there was a lot of conversation back and forth on everything. I was lucky that I created an Executive Team who saw this as a challenge themselves. Nothing like this had ever been attempted by the County or the State of New Jersey Tourism that I knew of in past history.
On Monday, April 27th at 11:00am, the students presented me their Power Point Presentation and their commercials. If ever there was a Professor that was prouder of his students, it was me. The Team took all the proposed ideas that I came up with plus adding the history of every town in Bergen County (all 70 of them) and came up with a very creative website not just for the Historical Sites, History of the Country and Historic Restaurants but the Talent Division created their own website as well.
The Power Point presentation was attended not just by myself but with other members of the Historical Community of Bergen County and that made the presentation really special that the students would get that feedback.
I have to say that I was totally blown away by not just the Power Point Presentation but by the commercials and the websites that they created. The one thing I knew is that the global pandemic did not stop this Team of students from accomplishing the task.
Both of my classes exceeded and impressed me with all of their ideas. Hats off to all the students involved in both projects. You should be proud of yourselves!
Here is the Bergecco-Parc Consulting Inc. Historical Website of Bergen County, NJ:
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