Teens hone business skills during local sales event

Alan Bermensolo poses with students participating in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, or YEA! program, following their participation in an "elevator pitch" session. The goal was to help these students sell their business ideas to prospective investors. The students are currently working on building their own businesses and non-profit organizations, which they hope to actually launch once they graduate from the academy.

Local students participating in a program aimed at turning students into successful company owners reached another step in the process as they tested their ability to sell their ideas to actual business owners.

Participants in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy program, commonly known as YEA!, conducted an "elevator pitch" session where they chatted with Alan Bermensolo from B Transfer as they rode the elevator at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Mountain Home.

The event is helping these students prepare for the YEA! Investor Panel Event on March 17 in Mountain Home. The students will use the event to introduce their business plans to a panel of local business and community leaders for real funding.

This event, scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. that day at the Hampton Inn, is open to the public.

This is the first time these future CEOs will have an opportunity to market their ideas in this type of public forum, said program representative Brandie Garlitz. The investor panel is similar in nature to the reality TV show, "Shark Tank."

This year's investor panel includes Robby Robinson from Bank of the Cascades, T.J. Gomez from Desert Canyon Golf Course, Johnson Brother's Hospitality and representatives from the Officer's Spouses Club at Mountain Home Air Force Base.

Throughout the YEA! program, students develop business ideas, write business plans, conduct market research, pitch their plans to a panel of investors and actually launch and run their own real, legal, fully formed companies and social movements.

As part of the program, students are introduced to all facets of the business world, including advertisers, insurance agents, graphic designers and web developers. Recently, students held a CEO round table where they listened to stories and asked questions to Bermensolo and local business representatives Randy Valley from Waddell and Reed and Chuck Ceccarelli with In the Ditch Towing Products.

By the end of this year's entrepreneur program, students will launch seven businesses, including Elite Wolfgear and Marcucci Coupons.

Since the program debuted here in November, more than 20 local businesses became involved with YEA! at various levels, Garlitz said.

"Students worked in close cooperation with local business leaders, community leaders and educators who used their personal experiences to demonstrate how to transform their ideas into tangible enterprises that create economic and social value for a better world," she added.

The Mountain Home Chamber of Commerce, which helped bring the program here, is currently accepting applications for the next year's academic year.

Gayle Jagel, CEO and founder of the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, developed the program in 2004 while serving as the director of the office of special programs at the University of Rochester. In 2008, it spun-off from the university to create its own non-profit corporation.

Today, it continues to be introduced in colleges, universities and high schools across the country.

Mountain Home is only one of two communities in Idaho offering the entrepreneurs academy program. The Meridian school district launched the initiative last year.

For more information on the program, call the chamber of commerce at 587-4334.