Three graduating seniors honored with special awards

Patrick Sanders, a senior marketing major with a 3.86 GPA, and Olta Sota, a senior accounting and finance major with a 3.91 GPA, are co-recipients of the Outstanding Student Award. Both Sanders and Sota are members of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College and B Start program.

Sanders served as the chief operating officer for the Business Student Senate for two years and is a member of the business honor society Beta Gamma Sigma. He has participated in Leadership Wayne II, a 56-hour leadership program where he interacted with Detroit-based CEOs. During his junior year, he was hired as the chief marketing officer at a growing Detroit-based tech startup. He would like to launch an international business that creates a centralized approach for consumers to get the quality products they need.

Sota is a founder of WSU’s chapter of the Financial Management Association and also peer mentors business students. As a summer intern, she traveled to Central America with PricewaterhouseCoopers to instruct citizens on financial literacy. Sota will be taking the CPA exam and moving to New York City to begin work with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“I will always be grateful to the business school for providing me with the best education and allowing me to grow as a person and into a true professional,” Sota said. “It has meant the world to me to be considered for such a high award and to be recognized for the hard work I have put into my undergraduate degree.”

Sota said Associate Dean Margaret Smoller has been a key figure in her undergraduate years.

“Professor Smoller has helped me grow academically. I’ve always been able to consult her for advice—whether it’s about the B Start program, [Business] Student Senate or the Financial Management Association,” Sota said.

Sanders and Sota join 35 past recipients of this award since it was first presented in 1981. Two students were selected for the Outstanding Student Award in a single year only three times.

Timothy Garmo, a marketing major with a 3.98 GPA, received the Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key Award for obtaining the highest cumulative GPA of this year’s graduates. Garmo is a presidential scholar. He is the president of marketing at his family’s business, TMG Inc. of Commerce Township. Since 2012, he has been working on the best methods for keeping customers informed and increasing the company’s customer base.

“WSU has taught me to embrace diversity. We do a lot of group projects and every time I put myself in as diverse a group as possible,” said Garmo. “This allows me to consider different perspectives that I might not have encountered before.”

“I am proud of our student recipients; they have proven that hard work and dedication leads to success,” said Margaret Williams, interim dean of WSU’s School of Business Administration. “Perhaps one day in the future we will see these students recognized with the Executive of the Year Award, Distinguished Alumnus Award or the Emerging Leader Award.”

The Business Student Senate received the Student Organization Community Service Award for continuing to set and achieve goals for students at the business school.

In addition to these awards, approximately 150 students received scholarship awards during this year’s Annual Recognition and Awards Program at the Detroit Institute of Arts on April 23.
 

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