Little Entrepreneurs Plan on Big Business

If she can pull it off, it will be a major achievement.

But things have a way of working at Junior Achievement--the venerable entrepreneurial program for kids that has turned hundreds of thousands of teen-agers into successful adult business people, says Kathryn J. Whitmire.

The former Houston mayor is the newly named head of the 75-year-old international organization that hopes to double the number of pint-size capitalists in Los Angeles over the next five years.

And if Southern California’s recession isn’t over by then, Junior Achievement graduates may be in a position to help put an end to it, Whitmire suggested Thursday.

Whitmire, 48, was in Century City for a dinner honoring longtime Junior Achievement supporter Lodwrick Cook, retiring chairman of Arco. Earlier, she met with junior entrepreneurs at Monte Vista Street Elementary School in Highland Park.

Fourth-graders there were mapping strategies to find raw materials for their yo-yo business. A few classrooms away, fifth-graders were practicing job interview techniques.

Putting youngsters to work with hands-on activities like those helps teach economics to schoolchildren as young as 5, Whitmire said.

“We want to let young people know about new career opportunities, not just the one major industry in their community that they might be familiar with,” she said, pointing to the shriveling defense industry that for half a century was the dominant business force in Southern California.

Classroom entrepreneurial lessons are taught by volunteers trained by Junior Achievement to help youngsters “stay focused on the need to stay in school” as well as think of future careers, Whitmire said. By the sixth grade, Junior Achievement students are knowledgeable about global economics.

Although it started in 1919 as an after-school program for Massachusetts high school students, Junior Achievement expanded four years ago to include pupils as young as kindergartners.

“Kids start making life decisions at about the third grade--’Am I going to drop out of school? Am I going to join a gang?’ ” said Allen Kirtley, president of Junior Achievement’s Southern California chapter.

Local businesses fund the program. And local businessmen traditionally have been the volunteers who run the 12-week, hourlong sessions now offered each semester at 425 Southern California schools.

But the program has begun recruiting college students, parents and retirees to beef up its corps of “consultants,” as adult leaders are called. About 2,000 volunteers assist 62,000 children; an additional 1,000 adults will be needed if the Los Angeles-area program is to reach its goal of nearly doubling in size by 2000.

Whitmire--who as a Houston 11th-grader belonged to a student-run Junior Achievement “company” that manufactured can openers--was mayor at a time when that city became more diversified and came out of a 1980s recession.

A wider economic base also will help Los Angeles out of its 1990s funk, she suggested.

“We’re in a more competitive environment now,” she said. “This is a time to focus on preparing the work force for the future.”