Cinnaminson High School junior Thomas (Tom) Schlindwein will now add “New Jersey State DECA Treasurer” to his resume of high school accomplishments. This will put him in the line of DECA state officers to come from CHS, alongside Michael Shay (DECA state treasurer 2011-2012) and current senior John Wright, who was named the Southern Region DECA Vice President last spring.

“Being the NJ DECA state treasurer is a big responsibility,” Schlindwein explains. “Next year, six other officers and I will lead NJ DECA.”

Currently, Moustafa Abdelaziz of North Jersey is the treasurer, but everything will soon change about this role because once Tom is sent into office, he will receive the title of “Social Media Correspondent” sometime in late May, a new role of this officer.  Most of the duties of the treasury duties will be moved to the State President of DECA, as the organization will monitor their baseline spending limit more closely.  This leaves the social media aspect of his job as the key component of his role.

Wright has faith that Schlindwein will fit into this new position very well, “(Current Treasurer) Moustafa is a numbers man so he is perfect for treasurer, he’s in all AP classes; he fits that position perfectly. While Tom is a much more personable kind of guy, he’s perfectly okay with going up to random people and talking to them.” That is exactly what is needed in a Social Media Correspondent.

Being the leader of DECA’s social media, he will have duties that will aim “towards promoting anything that is going on, like regionals, states, nationals; hopefully do some polls like if we have different design ideas for our state t-shirts or something. [He could] throw them out there, get some feedback, and make sure he stays in contact with everyone throughout the state. That’s his main goal, to keep everyone connected.”

Before he even decided to run for the position of treasurer, Wright and CHS DECA Adviser Mrs. Jones saw something in Tom that convinced them he needed to run.

“I was on maternity leave, so I had to rely on previous DECA members to be his reference. I had to rely on John Wright, who knows the responsibility part of it. I really relied on John to give him a good reference, and we sat down and talked about it and I asked ‘Does he have what it takes?’ and John gave me examples within the classroom and within the DECA program that he’s already been doing,” Jones shared.

Schlindwein was originally interested in joining DECA as a running officer when he met Wright.

“John Wright inspired me to run for state office. John mentored me this whole year and finally led me to get my position,” Tom said.

Tom also saw a deeper meaning to joining DECA, “John would always tell me how much fun it is and how it has helped out his life,” he finished.

DECA helps to teach young students about business and the ways of marketing. Some of this is done by role play, and other by real life involvement. What Tom will be gaining as a Social Media Correspondent is experience with modern day marketing.

The first thing which Tom had to market was himself if he wanted the role. The process to become a DECA officer was long and tedious. It involves countless submissions of forms; recommendation letters; a GPA requirement; 50 question tests; screening interviews with current officers; and eventually, if previous steps are passed, a campaign.

Held at the State Career Development Conference, campaigners from all branches of DECA flood the hallways, trying to get officers to stop at their booths and listen. This was Tom’s first year in DECA it was his first campaign experience.

“Each officer picks a theme that they want to make their campaign about. In the past years, we’ve had a pirate theme, we’ve had a casino theme, (John) had a sports theme, so this year we decided to go with country because country music has gotten really big in the state of New Jersey recently,” Mrs. Jones continued “So, Tom had cowboy hats to give out, and candy, and swag bags.  He had a lot of people attend his booth to find out what he was going to do to make New Jersey DECA better next year.”

Tom was able to organize aspects for his campaign since he began to fundraise early on. “We did candy grams and a gift wrapping event at the Riverton Country Club, and utilizing that money, we bought all his campaign materials and giveaways.” told Jones.

Although there was not a great deal of stress with election results because every candidate ran unopposed, including Tom, it does not take away from the work and dedication they had already put in, and as John Wright points out, “he did have that chance if nobody voted for him, so obviously he succeeded enough to get one person’s vote.”

Jones sees that the effort which Tom put into the campaigning alone shows, “Tom is very dedicated to the organization. I think that he is very interested in the social media aspect of things, we have already been going over a lot of the “do’s and don’ts” of social media and how portraying your organization or company in a positive light is very important, especially for a young professionals organization like New Jersey DECA.”

Being Social Media Correspondent, or the SCM, will not simply be a job of occasionally tweeting to catch people’s attention, or doing “shout-outs” to gain followers, it will in fact have much more responsibility weighted with it.

Even though Tom was just elected as the official SMC of 2015-2016, his duties have already begun.

To prepare for his new position of power he will attend a multitude of conferences, mainly surrounding the ideal of leadership and self- representation.

“He will be in charge of all the conferences that we as New Jersey DECA Host: The regional conference, the state development conference, The chapter officer Leadership Training conference (COLT), and he must partake in different meetings each month and he will also attend the International career development conference this year and next year.” Jones clarified.

John feels that Tom will do a spectacular job in his natural habitat of social activities and to “make sure that he stays positive with others, to give feedback right away (if someone asks him questions), and make sure to keep everything clean, cause we don’t want any mishaps happening.”

Mrs. Jones had similar advice to Tom on how to be a leader, “My biggest advice is that you’re always in the spotlight as an officer, so everyone is always looking at you for guidance, leadership, and professional behavior. It’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of people look up to you, so make sure that you shed yourself in the most positive light possible.”

With that, Tom Schlindwein looks to become the state of New Jersey’s first Social Media Correspondent with his first message of joining his group when he says that “I would love for people to participate in DECA next year and if they have any questions to contact me or Mrs. Jones.”