Katherine Chau (‘17) with two of the awards Fountain Valley High School’s Virtual Enterprise company, Off the Grid, received at the state and national competitions. Photo by Laura Le.by Laura Le, Staff Writer
Katherine Chau (‘17) is not your ordinary high school student. If anything, she’s rather extraordinary.
For starters, she’s a naturally driven leader who strives to be the best in everything she does. This is apparent in her extracurriculars, in which she holds leadership positions in a number of them.
Chau is currently the co-president of Academic Decathlon, CEO of Fountain Valley High School Virtual Enterprise’s (FVHS VE) company Off the Grid, executive activities director of California Scholarship Federation, activities director of Math Olympiad and a Link Crew leader. In the past, she has also served as the communications officer for the Investors Club and team manager of the girls volleyball team. Student government is no stranger to her, as she has been a member of Senate and House of Representatives.
She’s also a member of American Heart Association, Cee Ray Dive Buddies, Future Business Leaders of America, and National Honor Society.
Outside of school, Chau has been a secretary and nurse aide for the UC Irvine Medical Center and a marketing intern for State Farm Insurance.
With so many extracurriculars, it’s a mystery how she finds balance between them and her hectic schedule filled with several AP classes. However, all her hard work has since paid off with Chau planning to major in business administration at University of California Irvine starting this fall.
Chau characterizes herself as an extrovert who excels in the English language. Those two characteristics are what led Chau to pursue a career in business administration. As an Asian American coming from an immigrant family, she said speaking was a skill she picked up at an early age.
“I have always loved socializing and learning English in school, so negotiating and having things my way were easy for me to handle. Being able to use reasoning and logic to argue was delightful to me and I found a lot of success in my human interactions,” said Chau.
By joining many extracurriculars throughout high school, Chau discovered she had what it took to make each organization that she belonged to successful. Her active participation in her extracurriculars opened her eyes to all the opportunities business administration had to offer for her.
Business administration is one of the most popular college majors in the nation. However, Chau is determined to excel in her future endeavors.
“My competitive nature allows me to emerge as a leader in all of my activities, and I find great pride in putting myself out there into the world and having progressed from the place I started from, like from a member to an executive. All of these factors together have created a symphony so great that I plan to make it my life’s work,” said Chau.
Not only is Chau determined, she’s also experienced. She has taken a variety of business classes, which include financial services, visual imagery, AP Economics, AP Statistics, Sports and Entertainment Marketing and Virtual Enterprise, to prepare her for her future endeavors.
In her VE class, their company Off the Grid has created a concept that uses renewable energy from everyday movements to charge electronic devices. Their clothing line and shoes are made of an innovative technology that charges a battery through the use of kinetic energy. Consumers would be able to charge their devices with an interchangeable, waterproof adapter that transmits energy from each product, which would be powered by movements of the body. All of their items would be made up of their Smart Fabric technology, called Kinergize, which utilizes the piezoelectric effect to charge your phone and other electronic devices. Off the Grid’s concept is unique in the fact that the consumer can generate energy by simply running or walking, so the lasting power is virtually infinite. With their Kinetic Kicks and Fits, there will no longer be a need for bulky and inconvenient hardware.
From her experience as the CEO of the class company, Chau has learned how to run a successful business.
“I began to understand how a company should be run and how to efficiently work in a group setting, which ignited my flame as a young entrepreneur,” said Chau.
With a smaller class size, she was able to work closely with all departments, from information technology to marketing, to prepare for various competitions, which included designing a website and product catalog.
“During the process of writing and presenting a formal business plan, I was able to understand an entirely new environment of conducting business with students across the country while gaining knowledge of economics, technology and communication,” said Chau.
Without a doubt, all of the team’s hard work under Chau’s leadership has definitely paid off. Their solid business plan earned the team fifth place in the state of California and qualified them for the national competition, making them the first in the Huntington Beach Union High School District to achieve just that. At the 2017 National Business Plan Competition, FVHS VE placed in the top 13 in the nation and earned a gold medal in Sales Materials and Salesmanship. They also received honorable mention in Human Resources and Marketing Plan competitions.
Not only does Chau have the qualifications to pursue a career in business, she also has several accomplishments to show for it. In addition to FVHS VE’s successes at the state and national competitions, she has also been selected as a Distinguished Regional Occupational Program Student nominee for both her Financial Services and Virtual Enterprise classes. In addition, she was nominated for the Coronet Awards in the Business Education category as a junior and senior. She also earned second place for two consecutive years in the Interview category at the Orange County Academic Decathlon.
If someone is interested in pursuing a career in business or working for a company, Chau highly recommends they join Virtual Enterprise as it is mainly a student-driven class where students have the ability to learn real-life skills. Although she says the class requires a lot of outside work, Chau assures that the experience will be worthwhile since students are able to contribute to a company with a team of members who all want to succeed.
“After having the opportunity to take such a course, my interest for business has developed into a full-fledged hunger. As I continue to pursue my educational endeavors, I will always be looking forward to the next feast of challenges,” said Chau.
In 10 years, Chau hopes to be graduated with her MBA and starting a family. She also believes that one has to love what they do in order to be happy and successful.
“Business is a subject I want to pursue not only because I love talking with people and being engaged in conversation, but because it is a constant game everyone is trying to win, and I don’t plan on giving up anytime soon,” said Chau.
