Finance Training Fits L.A.’s Future

If the newly elected mayor wants a sign to lead by this morning, he might take a good look at a Los Angeles high school program that trains youngsters in finance and business and places them in real jobs.

The Los Angeles Academy of Finance is teaching 145 juniors and seniors at three L.A. schools: Woodrow Wilson, Los Angeles and Downtown Business Magnet. It will add Dorsey High School to the program in September.

The aim of the Academy, which is part of a nationwide effort to train poor kids for the world of work, is to teach accounting, securities operations, computers, economics and international finance. But those are only the formal subjects.

Equally important are the self-confidence and sense of accomplishment the program confers. Students apply for their own summer jobs at firms participating in the program. They set up their own interviews, compete for each job, then do demanding work and earn good pay--”more than $4.25 an hour,” says one student, citing the minimum wage.

Tanya Ramirez, who is in the academy program at Downtown Business Magnet High School, made $7.75 an hour last summer working for Capital Group, an investment management firm. Fellow student Dion Harris earned $8.25 an hour at the Smith Barney brokerage firm, once he got past clerking and into jobs with more responsibility.

Both Ramirez and Harris, who will be graduated this week, will spend the summer in a special program at UC Berkeley, preparatory to entering the university in the fall.

A heartwarming story, sure, but the academy is more than a charitable effort. It is training people for jobs with a real future in Los Angeles and Southern California.

A big worry in the present economic downturn is where the well-paying jobs will come from to replace those lost in aerospace. The answer lies in “trade and banking and finance,” says Eli Broad, who has built two companies in Los Angeles--Kaufman & Broad, the builder, and SunAmerica Inc., the life insurance firm.

Broad is right. Finance already employs four times more Californians than aerospace, and will hire more people as commercial and financial ties with Asia and Latin America expand. So Los Angeles will need more people capable of handling transactions and managing money--the same kinds of jobs that offer opportunity for ambitious young people in New York, London, Tokyo and the futures markets of Chicago.

That’s why the Academy of Finance, which set up here five years ago, has had the support of local banks and finance and accounting companies. Nor is it the only program reaching out to minority students. Mayoral candidate Richard Riordan since 1986 has had an education effort running at UCLA in which students meet with business leaders once a month.

The city can’t have too many such efforts. If the new mayor wants to assure Los Angeles’ future, he should order 100 programs like the Academy, because they change lives and fire optimism.

Tuesday morning at Downtown Business Magnet High, half a dozen students talked of how good it feels to learn, of opportunities and growth and of the future of multicultural Los Angeles.

“It feels nice when I can explain to my mother some of the news on television,” said Silvia Lopez, a junior.

The students are all the first generation in their families to plan on attending college and they have the confidence to plan big.

Jose Lopez, another junior, is working after school at C.I.C. Asset Management, a pension fund investment firm. “I do research on companies, look up the earnings per share,” said Lopez, who wants to go to Princeton.

Tishana Thompson hesitated before getting into the program. She had to catch up by taking two accounting courses at once. She got an A in both of them, and likes business and finance because “there will be job opportunities.”

“I don’t want a dead-end job,” she said. “There will always be a need for business.”

“We can make a difference in the community. We can go to college and come back and help out,” said Yen Hoang, who will enter Brown University in the fall. Hoang worked last summer, and now works after school, at Payden & Rygel, an investment management firm. Hoang calls the experience one of “responsibility, personal growth.”

And Sandra Rygel of Payden & Rygel, which has employed academy students for five summers, said: “It’s a two-way street. The students contribute to our company; the academy’s courses enable them to do the work.”

Still, can 150 successes make a difference in a 150,000-student Los Angeles high school population that is riddled with problems? Why not? It’s a case of lighting one candle, or 150 candles.

Beyond even the downsizing of aerospace, the big worry in Los Angeles today is that its people have ceased to work together, that every group is looking out for its own interests.

But that’s not the case among academy students, who reflect most of the city’s racial and ethnic backgrounds. They say last year’s riots opened a potential for growth.

“Everybody is looking for change,” said Harris. “I see a lot of opportunity opening up.”

Thompson agreed. “There’s no backing out,” she said. “Everyone’s going to have to pitch in--starting with a strong mayor.”