DESERET NEWS - KSL STERLING SCHOLAR AWARDS

2014 STUDENT ENTRY FORM

Name Of Nominee: Noah Harmer

School: Jordan Category: Business And Marketing


American College Testing (ACT) -

English: 30 Math: 32 Reading: 28 Sci./Reasoning: 28 Composite: 30

Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) -

Reading: Mathematics: Writing:

Supporting Attachment - Transcript
Supporting Attachment - Letter of Recommendation





January 21, 2014

To Whom It May Concern:

I am pleased to recommend Noah Harmer as a Business and Marketing Sterling Scholar. I have known Noah
personally and academically for many years. He represents a rare combination of academic talent, interpersonal
warmth and a strong sense of identity. He knows where he wants to go and has the skills to get there. He would be
an extraordinary representative of the Sterling Scholar program in our community.

I worked for eight years at the heart of Utahs business community, serving as an executive vice president at the
Salt Lake Chamber. During this time I became very well acquainted with many of Utahs most prominent
companies and business leaders. I see in Noah many of the same attributes that create successful business leaders
and build successful companies. For lack of a better term, I call it a pragmatic dreamer. Let me explain.

Noah knows how to get the job done. His overall score of 30 on the ACT and cumulative GPA of 3.8, with a rigorous
class load, demonstrate his pragmatic commitment to succeed. He possesses the hard skills necessary to succeed
in business. His discipline and work ethic serve essential roles in his success as a business scholar. This is his
pragmatic side.

Noah also has a creative side or what Ive described as a dreamer. He possesses the entrepreneurial drive to
create and manage a text list for his high school store, the resourcefulness to serve as a DECA officer focused on
recruitment and activities, and the ingenuity and free spirit to serve as the self-appointed leader of his high
schools cheer section at sporting events. Noah is a fun and spirited person, two great qualities in business
leadership, and especially valuable, when combined with technical business acumen.

Best of all, Noah has an unshakable commitment to service and citizenship. He has a consistent track record of
service to children diagnosed with cancer, to victims of the Haitian earthquake and to orphans in this same
country. Noah recognizes that he has an obligation to love and serve others as part of his commitment to the
human family.

It is this combination of business intelligence, originality and social responsibility that makes Noah an extraordinary
candidate as a Sterling Scholar. In Eastern philosophy terms, he sees with one eye closed and dreams with one eye
open. He combines his knowledge of business fundamentals marketing, entrepreneurship, accounting and
business law with his love for living and commitment to humankind. I can think of no finer combination to
represent business in our state.

With no hesitation I give Noah Harmer my highest recommendation to be recognized as Utahs Business and
Marketing Sterling Scholar. I invite your follow up if helpful.

Sincerely,




Natalie Gochnour
Associate Dean
Natalie.gochnour@business.utah.edu
801-509-1198




In 20 words or less, list up to six activities, honors and awards relating to your category.
1. Pizza Restaurant Manager
2. JIT Inventory System Expert
3. Seeker of Business Knowledge, Information, and Understanding
4. DECA Chapter Officer
5. Facilitator of Business Education
6. Hard Worker

Choose one of the activities, honors or awards, describe it briefly and explain why it was meaningful to you. What did you learn
and what did you accomplish?
During my time as a manager of a pizza restaurant to remain unnamed, I was shown the incredible task it is to run any kind of business.
In part-time jobs I'd held before, I had no care for decision and policy making within the entity, as long as I felt my responsibilities were
reasonable and I was receiving my paycheck every couple of weeks. This lack of care changed phenomenally when I was promoted to the
Night Manager position.
In taking that position, the restaurant's business and policy became much more my business and policy, as I was asked to support, uphold,
endorse, and enforce said policies and business activities. In working on the management staff, I became much more active in figuring
out how to run the restaurant, as it was my responsibility to do so three nights a week. Major responsibility was placed upon me if
business during my hours was not good, if there were employee or scheduling issues, or most importantly, if there were problems with
customers. I had become involved with the finances and ethics involved with running the business, as well as the values of those I
managed.
As someone who is very strong in ethic and moral code, I began to have minimal disagreements with others in management about policy
choices in the restaurant. Through these disputes (all peaceable), I was able to learn the value of discussion and compromise in a formal
business setting, and was also exposed to the oddities of running a business and striving to be a profitable one.
My experiences have been extremely meaningful and of regular reference in my new job, and also in my furthering of business
education. As business is something I am passionate about and interested in, experience in management was extremely valuable and
useful for me as a businessperson. Whereas the formally educational portion of business learning has taught me of trends, theories,
strategies, and normalcies of the business world, my work experience has helped me put things I've learned into practice and common
use.
Though I learned more of how I would prefer not to run a business in this experience, it is still just as, if not more important than an
experience where I am shown a perfectly run one. Deductive experience is as important is exemplary experience, and I feel that my
aptitude in an entrepreneurial situation has increased ten fold as result of it.

List up to six activities, honors and awards that relate to the leadership qualifications.
1. Pizza Restaurant Manager
2. DECA Officer
3. Student Section Chant Leader
4. Priest Quorum Presidency Member
5. School Store Manager
6. Service Project Organizer

Choose one of the activities, honors or awards that relate to the leadership qualification and describe it briefly.
As someone who loves athletics, but is not overwhelmingly athletic, I have struggled to find a niche in the world of sport. This year, I
have taken on the responsibility of facilitating school spirit at Jordan High School sporting events by students. As I feel that peers should
make up a good chunk of your general life support group, I think it is important that the athletics participants at our school know that the
general student body supports them in their endeavors as sportspeople.
As someone who manages and facilitates school spirit at sporting events, my responsibilities are as follows:
1. Promote attendance to sporting events at school via word of mouth, text message, social networking, etc.
2. Work with student government members, athletes, administration, and others involved in athletics to organize promotions, themes,
cheers, chants, etc. to make game experience more positive for all involved.
3. Arrive at events early, and work as an anchor of sorts in placing a student section in a place where we are easily gathered, seen, and
heard by all parties in attendance at the game.
4. Show general pep and excitement; Promote others' show of the same; Make other students feel enthusiastic about cheering on the
'Diggers.
5. Start chants, cheers, and yells appropriate to game situations (Be prepared to improvise by knowing common chant formats, player and
team names, and general sports jabber. This is very important, as cheers are very situational.)
6. Know general game situation, plausible outcomes, and be very aware of what is going on. A illy placed chant or cheer will make the
whole section of students look witless.
7. Be positive and enthusiastic regardless of game outcomes. If the football team is down by four touchdowns, or defeat is imminent,
your support for the squad is more important than ever. Their knowledge of peers' support regardless of success goes a long way.
8. After games, win or lose, linger a little while and thank people for coming and participating. Your friendliness and approachability as
the face of the student section goes a long way.
9. Be open to suggestion, correction, advice, and ideas from anyone. Ideas come from anywhere and anyone. You can find knowledge in
the oddest of nooks if you are open to it.
Leading the Jordan High School Student Section has been an awesome experience for me, and I feel that a good student section has
power and prowess beyond sporting events. It's a way to forge friendships, make connections, have fun, and cheer a team on to success,
whether that be a state championship, or a single basket in a basketball game. My job was, and still is to promote achievement. I feel that
the recognition of an achievement is almost as important as the accomplishment itself, and leading a spirit section is my way of showing
that.

List up to six activities, honors or awards that relate to the qualifications for Community Service and/or Citizenship.
1. Children's Oncology Network & One Step at a Time - Every February, my family and I collect and serve food for physically impaired
and disabled skiers who come to Park City for a week.
2. Crutches for Haiti - An aunt, an uncle, and me organized a charity that collected crutches and other medical supplies for victims of the
Haitian Earthquake in 2010.
3. Haitian Roots - Annually, my family runs a project to pay Haitian orphan's public school tuition (7 Years).
4. Independent - One winter, my family and I collected food and gifts for an Equatorial Guinean refugee family for Christmas.
5. DECA - This year, I am organizing and running Jordan High School's DECA Chapter's service project through the before mention
organization, Haitian Roots.
6. Eagle Scout - As a member of an extremely active Boy Scout troop, I learned the importance of service (through many projects),
citizenship (through attendance and participation to local government meetings), and application of practical skills (through earning merit
badges).

Choose one of the activities, honors or awards that relate to the Community Service/ Citizenship qualification and describe it
briefly.
Several years ago, members of my extended family took a trip to Haiti, and after returning, my aunt and uncle decided they wanted to
adopt orphaned fraternal twin baby boys. As the adoption progressed, we became more and more aware of the extreme poverty that exists
in the country, and the lack of literacy and basic education in the country.
The extreme poorness of the residents of this nation can be attributed in part to the lack of education. My family, in realizing this, felt it
was our human duty to find a way to lend a hand to these people, as they are so desperately in need. We learned, in the process of
adoption that the men and women running the orphanage also ran a charity, Haitian Roots, thats goal was to send as many children as
possible to school in the country, in order to facilitate growth in the country from the bottom. In Haiti, the median income is around four
hundred dollars a year, and public schooling runs on a tuition of about two hundred and fifty dollars a student. Most families can not
afford to send children to school. And the orphans have an even more difficult time acquiring those funds.
Sending children to school facilitates a bettering of life beyond education, as they are put in a safer environment than the streets, and are
eating at least one meal (lunch) each day. Beyond serving to increase Haiti's literacy rate (currently forty-five percent), it helps kids in
many ways beyond that, and gives them hope that they will one day produce for themselves.
My immediate family runs a project each holiday season, in which we collect change, or something like unto that to raise money to
sponsor children's schooling for the year. In the last seven years, my family has been able to help more than fifty kids become literate and
safer from probable adult poverty.
At the end of the schooling period, we receive letter from each student we sponsor detailing their interests and ambitions. I am more the
ecstatic that I am able to foster in part the internal improvement of Haiti as a nation, and each individual child. I am confident that we are
making a lasting impact on a global scale and are helping to foster a more prepared generation than Haiti has ever had.

Describe two or three unique things about yourself and relate them to your category. If possible, include challenges you have
overcome and describe any distinctive experiences that have affected you.
There are a few unique qualities I possess that fuel my aptitude and interest in business. As someone whose interests are eclectic and far-
reaching, I have obtained a skillset and thought process unique to me and especially fitting for business and marketing. My qualities as a
problem solver and an information junkie are particularly of use.
I've always loved math. Not necissarily the arithmetic part of math, but the process of finding solutions to a problem, and the process of
doing it in a formulaic, organized, analytical fashion. The manner in which we do math should be the manner in which we conduct
business, a logic-based, simplifying manner. I try to go about creating solutions any situation in my life or in business the same way.
Write the problem down, analyze it, figure out the process in which you can eliminate fluff, and break it down to the point where you can
find that A equals B. In business, we may want to maximize revenue. In order to do so, we must find things that would help us do that. In
a retail environment, it may be increaseing friendliness to customers. If we can recognize that those two concepts have a relationship, we
can use that relationship to improve our standing as a business. That is an overly simple example, but it showcases my point.
Another unique quality I possess is one of a thirst for knowledge. I want to know something (or everything) about everything. I read
informational text every free second I have, and look to broaden my understanding of anything, as I feel knowledge is the most valuable
thing anyone can possess. That seemingly useless knowledge can be made useful in business. When working at a pizza restaurant, my
knowledge of simple trigonometry helped me to cut pizzas evenly when I looked at the round pizza like a unit circle. Knowledge is not
worth anything when not applied in life, but if we are to find ways to use to better the world, it's worth is infinite.
These qualities increase my aptitude to deal with any situation, and increase my credibility as a businessperson. Qualities like unto these
also increase my value as an asset to any business entity, and put me in superior position to manage and organize on a corporate level.

How do you think your involvment in this category will enrich your life?
Business is defined by Webster's Dictionary as purposeful activity. That's a broader definition than general used by Sterling Scholar, but I
feel it is appropriate, as it's the one I most generally use for reference in my life, and it's the most simple and general of definitions for the
word. Our lives consist of us participating in activities, and that is about the simplest way of stating what, we, as humans do. If we seek to
make any activity we participate in purposeful, we have a life more worth our time and effort.
I already feel that my engagement in business, or purposeful activity enriches my life phenomenally. If seek to do anything I do with
purpose, I am more able to grow and learn as a human being. As knowledge is of the upmost value to me, learning and growing is
incredibly important in me finding value and meaning as a person. Learning and growing helps me become less so imperfect and more so
a valuable individual, as every human very basically seeks to become.
Business, in a more worldly and typical sense is a ways and means for me to have income and raise a family, which is very important to
me. I wish to be a Father that can provide for the needs of his spouse and children. I want to be someone who needs not ask others for
help in providing a livable condition for my kin, and Business as a career will help me to be able to do that. On the topic of family, being
able to run a family with purpose, or in a business-like way is greatly beneficial in the societal norms of today.
Business gives me a purpose and an efficient methodology to deal with any hand I am dealt in my life, and for that I am very grateful.
Business is not only a passion I have, but a massively helpful way of processing information, ideas, and situation. It is, for me, a way to
organize, order, and engage in life.

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