Way too young for tenure

Danette Goulet

ORANGE COAST COLLEGE -- They aren’t old enough to get a job, but in

the next two weeks 15 young entrepreneurs will plan and launch businesses

of their own.

And their teacher on this path to becoming millionaires is even

younger than many of his students.

At 11 years old, Joshua Ballard is the youngest instructor ever to

take a lectern in an OCC classroom, said Marge Ball, the school’s

director of community education.

It is more than his tender years and advanced position that make

Joshua unusual. His manner is serene and refined, but his enthusiasm for

his subject matter and the excitement in his young brown eyes is

youthful.

His course, “Future Millionaires and Junior Entrepreneurs,” is a

non-credit course aimed at children in the fourth through the eighth

grades.

“It was kind of weird at first because he knew stuff most people in

here didn’t -- about what a CEO is and how to manage a business,” said

Matt Hopkins, 13, of Joshua as a teacher.

Joshua learned all he knows about business through intense study, home

schooling with his mother, Gail Ballard, who holds a master’s degree in

education and helps him teach his class and most recently through

firsthand experience.

Seven months ago the young entrepreneur and business professor began

his own company, Ballard International, a Web page design business.

“I was at a business expo seven months ago,” said the Fountain Valley

boy. “We saw a company called Executive Connection Network, and I found

out I could make Web sites.”

Now Joshua spends about two hours a day on his Web design and

development business, he said, creating about 10 Web sites a week.

Even with that success under his belt, he was hesitant at first when

Cerritos Community College invited him to come teach a business course to

his peers, Joshua said.

“I was taking a computer networking class at Cerritos as a fourth

grader,” he said. “It was for seventh through 12th graders. Then I

realized I was the only one answering questions -- except one 12th

grader.”

His instructor realized it too and invited him to teach a class there.

His first class graduated one week ago with flying colors, he said.

It wasn’t easy to plan out a 10-session course.

“It was a lot of studying,” he said. “It took about six or seven

months to come up with a day-to-day curriculum.”

The class, which he is also teaching at Golden West Community College,

and again at Cerritos, began Monday at OCC.

“It’s a lot of standing up, but it’s interesting to see what’s in

their brains,” Joshua said of his students. “They’re all millionaires in

my eyes.”