New program to prepare Crawford Co. students to become entrepreneurs

A new community organization, Crawford County CEO (Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities), is seeking investors willing to help the county's entrepreneurs of the future.

The new countywide program will teach high school students about business and entrepreneurship, explained Audrey Flood, who's chairing the Crawford County CEO board of directors.

"What it is for the students is a really out-of-the-box kind of hands-on class that they take that focuses on developing business, and the whole concept of entrepreneurship," she said. "They meet every day. They are connected with a local business mentor. And then they have really hands-on experiences of starting a business. They start a business together as a class and then they start an individual business. It's not a hypothetical or theoretical business; they really, actually operate the business and sell a product or service by the end of the program."

Flood said that in an effort to give back to the community, her employer, North Central Electric Cooperative, brought the idea to community leaders to see if it would be a good fit here. Over the last few years, the cooperative helped get the first CEO program in Ohio started in Seneca County; the Crawford County program is expected to be the second.

Preparations to launch the program started last year; the class is expected to begin at the start of the 2023-24 school year, she said.

The CEO program is a model created by the Midland Institute for Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit based in Effingham, Illinois.

"It found really great success there in that community, so they decided to help other communities get their own programs started," Flood said.

Staffers from the institute visit other communities to help get the program launched, she said. "But it is completely driven by the local community," she said.

Local group is seeking investors

A local board makes all decision about the program, and it will be funded locally with investments by local businesses and entities, Flood said.

"Our biggest need at this point is community investors," Flood said. "These are entities that would give $1,000 per year for the program."

The group is seeking a minimum of 35 local businesses willing to support the program through an investment of $1,000 per year, according to a news release from the Crawford Partnership. Once launched, the program will need businesses to host students at their sites, speakers to share knowledge and experience, mentors to be paired with students, and volunteers to help drive the program. Right now, gathering investors of $1,000 each is the most urgent need to ensure success of the program.

"That's what our main focus is right now, that we're really heavily spending our effort on," Flood said.

Crawford County CEO will have a “Community Kickoff” event 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 11 at Bakers Pizza to introduce the community to the program, according to the news release. Guests will hear from Chris Egelston from the Midland Institute as well as students who participated in the Seneca County CEO program last year. Business leaders as well as interested parents, students and community members can attend.

"Schools don't pay to have their students participate and students don't pay to participate, either," Flood said. "Any student in the county will be eligible to apply, with no cost to them."

CEO will be open to juniors and seniors from county school districts

The program, which will be open to juniors and seniors from any of the county's school districts, will have a facilitator — that position will be filled later — but the students will spend little time listening to that person lecture, Flood said. The majority of class time will be spent visiting local businesses and hearing from local business owners and community leaders.

There will be a bankers day, when the students apply for loans or grants; and then a pitch competition, where they can pitch their ideas to local investors. At the end of the year, there's a trade show event, "which you can picture as basically like a science fair, except that they are actually selling their products or services at this," Flood said. "So it's a show-and-sell instead of a show-and-sell."

"Why I personally like it the most is because of that hyper-local focus, that it's really rooted in the community and it's focused on creating those local connections between the students and the community members and the businesses, so it kind of answers that 'Why here?' question for young people," Flood said. The program aims to address the "brain drain" problem faced by Crawford County and similar rural communities.

It "shows these young students why they can do what they would like to do here in our community, whether that ends up being starting a business or whether it ends up being an intrapreneur inside one of the businesses that already exist by using the skills they learned to be a really great employee of the future workforce," Flood said.

"The main focus is strengthening our community by creating these future community members and business leaders that are going to have that local network and local focus, and know that they can be successful here," whether that means coming back after college or by staying here and investing in their future, Flood said.

According to the news release, leaders of the Crawford County CEO program, in addition to Flood, are Nate Harvey of the Crawford Success Center, David Zak of the Crawford Partnership, Miranda Jones of the Galion-Crestline Chamber, County Commissioner Larry Schmidt, James Patrick of Bucyrus Copper Kettle, Averee Richardson of the Bucyrus Area Chamber of Commerce, Todd Boyer of Ohio Mutual Insurance Group, Kevin Fourman of the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center and Todd Martin of Colonel Crawford Local Schools.

David Zak: Program has a great track record

"I’m a big believer in programs that are proven models, that have a track record," Zak said. "This program has been demonstrated across nine states, more than 60 programs, hundreds of schools, to transform high school students to young professionals who are gritty and understand how to how to get things done in the real world."

The program serves the community well, as the students involved go on to be both business owners and good employees. In the community where it was founded about 11 years ago, CEO has resulted in the creation of 11 new brick-and-mortar businesses, he said.

The program helps students realize they don’t have to go to bigger communities to achieve their goals.

"It transforms their mindset about Crawford County and I’ve seen it live — it’s not about theory, it works," Zak said. "And it's just really, really cool."

For details about the program or to make reservations for the Oct. 11 event, contact Flood at 440-387-6562 or aflood@fesco-oh.org. Learn more about the general program at discoverceo.com.

ggoble@gannett.com

419-559-7263

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: CEO program will prepare local students to become entrepreneurs