11/01/2008
At Gilbert High School last week, students Clay Long and Kimberly Leister were part of Company F, which made and marketed a gizmo called the Master Mixer.
"It will mix anything from a salad to cement," said school counselor Paul Jacobson, a faculty adviser.
Long, a junior, and Leister, a senior, started with their invention, worked with other students to develop a business plan, then went through an imaginary two-year period during which they ramped up production, marketed the Master Mixer and figured out profits and losses.
It's all part of Business Horizons, a week-long introduction to how to run a business. Offered by the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, Business Horizons is normally a summertime program open to students from across the state.
But Gilbert is the only high school in Iowa to offer a Business Horizons experience during the regular school year. This year, it drew 190 juniors and seniors.
Did the session produce any "aha moments" for Long and Leister?
"I think the whole week has been like that," said Long. "I've thought about starting a business but I never understood how until I had it explained to me."
Leister said that after listening to expert speakers in the school gym, the students took their ideas back to their "companies" to streamline production and develop infomercials, which they performed on Thursday afternoon.
Leister, who works part-time at Coldstone Creamery in Ames and wants to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, said she would like to take her skills to help people start businesses in developing Third World countries.
Long said he'd like to get into medical product development and sales.
Meanwhile, in a hallway outside the gymnasium, half a dozen representatives of the Small Business Administration and the Service Corps of Retired Executives were busy grading the decisions made by each participating team.
"We're looking at price, production, marketing, investment, R&D, basically, the real life factors that real business people have control over," said SBA representative Tom Harbison.
"This process covers a typical business cycle of eight quarters, and we watch what the kids do through that time frame," he said.
The teams make a number of strategic decisions during the week, and the judges grade them on a scale of one to 100, Harbison said.
Joining him were SCORE members Paul Whitmore, a former Des Moines clothier, Jack and Charlotte Maples, former auto dealers from Newton, and Nick Mancuso, a retired Des Moines food distributor, as well as SBA members Vern Sample, Dave Lentell and Linda Haus.
Hope Bossard, director of curriculum for the Gilbert Community School District, said that it's a lot of work recruiting volunteers and setting up the event, "but it is worth every minute of the effort.
"The kids seem really interested, and when you consider the state of the economy, it's good that they're paying attention," she said.
Bossard brought the idea to Gilbert after she taught at Drake University and saw the summer edition of Business Horizons there, before it moved to Simpson College at Indianola.
She said she's grateful for the work of volunteer business people "who basically give up an entire work week, from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. over five days, to do this."
Jacobson served as faculty advisor for Company F.
"The kids invented their product after they sorted through a whole bunch of stuff that was on the gym floor our first day," he said. "This product is a combination of clothes hangers and an orbital sander."
As a facilitator, Jacobson said he could guide the process but not influence the decisions.
"They start with the product, price it, take it through production and into marketing, all on their own, based on what they learned from (expert) presenters," he said.
Business volunteers included Don Foley, a former Gilbert School Board member and a member of the Iowa Bankers Association, and Sean Barber, owner of Anything Scout, which markets a vehicle by the same name manufactured by International Harvester.
"Not only is this a tremendous experience for the kids, but it gives business people a chance to develop relationships with the teachers and staff at the school," Foley said.
Barber, a former Californian who came to Iowa to develop his business, said the experience gave him a chance to explain to the students why Iowa is a good place to start and grow a business.
Bob Zientara can be reached at (515) 663-6961, or at rzientara@amestrib.com.
