To encourage students to engage with peers to succeed, Student Development and Orientation and Student Government Association members put on the iLead Leadership Conference Tuesday Sept. 19 in Clark Student Center.

“This conference is about an investment in yourself,” Jesse Brown, student organization coordinator who organized the conference, said. “You can go to different tracks to learn about what resources we have here at the university, how to develop leadership skills and learn how to run committee meetings.”

Along with the three different tracks, the focal point of the evening shined on keynote speaker Pete Mockaitis, author and podcaster with more than 1 million downloads, as he discussed his blueprints to generate success for organizations.

“I wanted to talk about how you have one year to make success go in your moment, your year, your time of student leadership,” Mockaitis said. “One that will leave your successors with a model to follow instead of a mess to clean up.”

Mockaitis provided a small montage of motivational speeches he found called, “20 Motivational Speeches in Two Minutes.” He followed this up with another example of what he thought a good leadership quality was.

“Commitment is my first thought when I think of a good leadership quality,” he said. “I think if you really care about your organization and the people in it, then that will cover a multitude of things.”

About 100 students signed up to attend, and Representative David Farabee made an impromptu appearance to talk to students about service oriented leadership.

According to Brown, out of the six or seven years for the event, “This was the largest iLead conference so far.”