TACOMA, Wash. - Tiana Fernandez of Pukalani, a senior at the University of Puget Sound, was part of a team that won the top Northwest prize in a financial industry contest.
The team of Business and Leadership School students captured the 2012 Pacific Northwest Investment Research Challenge, hosted by the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Seattle. The challenge involved writing an analysis of the publicly listed company Coinstar and presenting it to investment professionals. Coinstar makes and distributes coin-counting machines and Redbox movie-rental kiosks.
Fernandez and her four teammates flew to New York last week for the national contest.
She is the daughter of Gayle and Harold Fernandez Jr. of Pukalani and a 2008 graduate of King Kekaulike High School. She is enrolled in the Business Leadership Program and has minors in economics and mathematics.
The other competing teams in the Pacific Northwest challenge were from the University of Washington (Seattle), University of Washington Bothell, Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle University and Western Washington University.
In addition to the New York trip, winning team members received a year's membership in the Chartered Financial Analyst Society of Seattle, a table at the group's premier annual dinner and a private dinner with two local investment luminaries.
