Junior Achievement Programs Give Students a Real Lesson in Business : Education: Aspiring capitalists pick and sell imaginary products like 'Fish Wax.' Some engage in corporate espionage on market strategy.

By JAMES ZOLTAK

May 31, 1993 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Those who predict the United States can never recover its dominance in the global economy might be less pessimistic after spending a Wednesday morning with North Hollywood High School teacher Brian York’s senior class in applied economics.

For all but one school day each week, it’s business as usual: pie charts, supply and demand curves, traditional and command economies.

On Wednesday mornings, however, theories and graphs spring to life in the form of Emmanuel Ogunji, a volunteer consultant from Texaco who uses the Junior Achievement economics curriculum to lead 32 aspiring capitalists in trying to make a profit selling an imaginary product called an “Echo-Pen.”

“Your decision today is to come up with a price for your product,” says Ogunji, who emigrated to the United States from Nigeria 20 years ago and is one of 10 volunteers from Texaco who work in Junior Achievement programs in the Valley. Texaco also supplies students with Junior Achievement textbooks and study guides.

“Are you with me?” Ogunji asks.

With a resounding “yes,” the students split into five or six rival “companies” to decide how much they are going to charge for their remarkable pens, which keep a record of everything they ever write.

Some students engage in corporate espionage, trying to eavesdrop on rivals’ strategy discussions. Others try to cajole competitors into disclosing their price.

No one budges, however, and one by one, group leaders approach the market simulation computer with their prices clutched to their chests like state secrets.

One group leader, Daniel Fuselier, 18, explains why he likes the Junior Achievement program.

“It teaches me about managing my money,” he says.

Alfons Wetzstein, 17, agrees.

“It shows us how to start a business,” he says. “We’re learning how to survive in the business world.”

On this Wednesday, the computer has a cold lesson for those who lowered their price too much. To their surprise and disappointment, it tells them that undercutting competitors’ prices without increasing inventory has left them without enough pens in stock to meet the increased demand. The consumer will probably move on to the next vendor, willing to pay a few more dollars to purchase a suddenly scarce product.

The students’ reactions--some are delighted, others dejected--indicate the lesson’s effectiveness.

“These kids are one year away from being able to vote,” says Pat O’Hara, a spokesman from Burbank-based Junior Achievement of Southern California, which supplies teachers with material to teach a program in applied economics that is the only approved alternative to the official state curriculum.

“The decisions they make can make or break the economy of California. If there’s any hope of us becoming the most competitive nation in the world again, you’re looking at it right here.”

Five other programs for students, in kindergarten through senior year of high school, are also part of the Junior Achievement program. The program was once made up largely of after-school clubs--as it still is in many areas. But it’s now sometimes part of the actual school curriculum in much of California.

This year, almost 10,000 Valley students will join 48,000 throughout Southern California and 1.4 million nationwide who will be exposed to some level of Junior Achievement programs, O’Hara said. Junior Achievement also reaches 450,000 students in 63 foreign countries, and has recently been introduced in 1,000 classrooms in Russia.

Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 in Springfield, Mass., when Horace A. Moses, then president of the Strathmore Paper Company, and American Telephone & Telegraph president Theodore Vail decided that urban youth lacked exposure to the “learn by doing” programs offered rural youngsters through the 4-H Club.

In its early days, Junior Achievement stressed developing useful hand skills. Later, the program shifted to its present-day focus on business and economics. After World Wr II, the program began a national expansion from the East Coast and today the nonprofit program is franchised in 240 cities nationwide.

Funding comes completely from private and corporate donations.

Junior Achievement of Southern California, which received a $1.5-million grant from Arco to complete its modern 2-year-old facility, was founded in 1954 by Morris B. Pendleton, president of Pendleton Tool Industries, Inc.

If not for a shortage of businessmen and women willing to serve as volunteers, the number of students involved in Junior Achievement could easily be higher, says Marty Anenberg of Granada Hills, a Junior Achievement marketing manager who works as a volunteer in an after-school “Company Program” for 10th graders from North Hollywood High School.

Anenberg and two other volunteers from the Valley work with about 30 students in a company called Fish Wax and meet Thursday evenings at Millikan Junior High in Sherman Oaks. Two other Junior Achievement companies, each with a trio of volunteer consultants providing guidance, also meet Thursdays at Millikan.

The students in the after-school program play for keeps. They choose a product (in the case of Fish Wax, it’s beaded bracelets), elect a board of directors, sell stock, purchase, market and sell their product and after 12 weeks liquidate the company, paying dividends to shareholders and keeping any resulting profits for themselves.

“I enjoy being a leader, making sure everybody does their work,” says Sarah Pearlman, 16, president of a company called Creative Designs that makes cellophane-wrapped potpourri roses--a hot item for Mother’s Day. “I haven’t lost any friends yet.”

Juan Cruz, 16, part of a company called Bright Ideas that assembles and sells auto interior lights that plug into a car’s cigarette lighter, says Junior Achievement has given him the opportunity to meet other students who seemed inaccessible.

“Some people here I’ve had in my classes but I’ve never had a chance to talk to,” said the soft-spoken youngster.

The president of Bright Ideas, Matt Jones, 16, arrives a little late because he’s on the North Hollywood High varsity track team.

“It’s lots of fun, but you’ve got a lot on your shoulders too,” he says of being a corporate officer. “If the company doesn’t succeed, you’ll feel like it’s your fault. But if it does, you can take a little credit for it.”

Back at Fish Wax, company President Natalie Avital, 15, interrupts her employees to announce the results of a sales contest.

The winner, Isabel Leon, 16, has brought in 10 special orders in two weeks.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be an astronaut or a doctor,” she says. “But now I see I’m good at selling things so maybe I’ll go into the business world.”

For her efforts, she wins two tickets to see Sting at the Pacific Amphitheater, compliments of Anenberg and co-consultants Bill Neckameyer of Burbank and Mark Lorenz of Chatsworth.

Anenberg, Neckameyer and Lorenz put up their own money for the tickets.

Neckameyer, a senior account executive at California Offset Printers in Glendale who joined Junior Achievement 15 years ago, says he’d like to recruit employees from Fish Wax.

“I’ve seen some of the officers become very mature in a short period of time,” he says. “It started out as a popularity contest. Now it’s, ‘Who can produce?’ ”

Lorenz, a project consultant at Prudential, gets into the act by helping string bracelets.

“If you’re going to supervise, you’ve got to know the work, right?” Lorenz says.

The rapport between the consultants--who have to endure the blaring of R.E.M. and Arrested Development from a boombox in the back of the class--and the students is a dynamic integral to the program.

“They are like, so cool,” says Eli Lehrer, 15. “They’re more like friends than adults.”

For Anenberg, the program is a weekly highlight.

“I look forward to my Thursdays,” he says. “It’s a win-win situation.”

Minority volunteers are in particular demand, O’Hara said.

“We have a reputation of being a white-bread organization,” he admits. “We need minority volunteers to go into minority communities and teach minority kids.”