(upbeat music) - Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with James Horne, who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Junior Achievement in New Jersey.

James, good to see you again.

- Good to see you, Steve.

How's it going?

- Things are great.

Listen, you joined us when you first came on board as the CEO of Junior Achievement.

A lot has gone on since then, but remind people about your experience as an alum of Junior Achievement, 'cause it matters.

- It really does matter and it's very exciting as I make my way around the state and tell my story about being in the company program back in high school and learning how to take a product from production to market.

Being the head of sales for that organization was really very, very important for me in terms of my development.

And Steve, you run into people now that I tell that story to and they say, "Oh, yeah, I remember the company program."

And it's kind of good to know that it's made such a difference.

JA has made such a difference in so many people's lives.

- Tell everyone what the mission of Junior Achievement is and who you serve.

- Well, I mean, the mission, as oddly as it might sound, is really to help improve the quality of life for communities that we serve.

And we say that because once we understand that if we can help our young people matriculate to become productive adults, they're gonna contribute to improving the quality of life for everyone in our community and in our state.

And that's really the mission.

But really by igniting the passion of young people, getting them prepared for tomorrow, making sure that they are contributing to their communities and to their societies and moreover to themselves and their families.

- James, as part of the quote, unquote "strategic plan" of Junior Achievement, you talk about the goal being impacting 20% of the state's population by 2028 with current outreach being about 80,000 students a year.

So what are we talking about?

How the heck would you get to 20% of the state's population over the next-- - Well, it's actually the state students population.

So that would be-- - Student population.

- Incredible if I could do that.

But so we are calculating about 300, 350,000 students represent that 20%.

And so really deploying a lot of different assets to reach that target number, digital assets, a lot of in-school learning, a lot of independent learning, along with some of our hands-on activities, restructuring our organization so that we're serving every region uniquely.

So I've got a regional staff person assigned to each of, to four regions around the state.

Last year we served about 75,000.

This year we're on track to go over 85,000.

We have a goal next year to go over 100,000.

So just really kinda moving the needle along, looking at our business model, as I said, and really engaging our corporate partners to multiply our reach.

- James, talk about BizTown.

What's BizTown?

- BizTown is a civics activity for fifth and sixth graders.

And in that there's about 16 hours of in-school learning around how a community works.

Then the students are given a business identity.

Someone's gonna be the mayor, someone's gonna be the president of the bank, someone's gonna run the architecture firm, someone's gonna run UPS, Phillips 66, and they have employees with them.

They go through the day, you know, doing activities that mimic how work is done in an organization.

At the end of the day, they look at their profit margin ratio, they pay the employees, and they really celebrate the ability to kind of interact as adults for the day.

It's a really fun time.

A lot of our corporate volunteers really enjoy coming here to BizTown.

And the great thing, Steve, is the teachers really enjoy it as well.

This year for the first time we had all the fifth graders from Paterson come and the teachers-- - Really?

- Were blown away by that experience.

And yeah.

- All the fifth graders?

- Yes.

- In Paterson?

- Yes.

- That's awesome.

- Yeah, very intentional.

So having those district-wide relationships, again, helps us get to that number of 25%.

So we reached out to the districts.

We're onboarding several districts in that fashion to really maximize opportunities for students and ultimately create that alumni experience.

So were you involved in JA in fifth grade, middle school, high school, and then you'll be able to talk about being a JA alum someday yourself.

- What is High School Leaders, excuse me, High School Heroes and what's its connection to promoting leadership among young people?

- Well, it's actually just that.

It's a leadership development opportunity for a high school student where we allow them and train them to deliver JA curriculum to kindergartners through fifth graders.

So the Heroes are actually trained on delivering that curriculum.

They're in front of the classroom of those third, fourth graders talking about, you know, how a city works, how money works, and they're really leading the day.

And it's really exciting when you see them in front of the elementary school that they went to talking to students and maybe family members and that exchange is so rewarding for both the Heroes and for the students.

- It's interesting, you mentioned rewarding.

James, you talk about coming through the Junior Achievement program as an alum and for you to be where you are now as the CEO, President, CEO.

I think I asked you this the first time you joined us.

So two years later, I'm gonna ask this again.

How much of your work at Junior Achievement is personal?

- Wow.

It's interesting that you asked that question.

I think when I first took the job, it was more of an emotional pull, but now that I'm in the role for a couple years, it's really personal.

Coming from housing projects, LMI community, understanding personally the benefits and really wanted to give that back to kids with similar backgrounds.

It's really very personal.

- Where'd you grow up, James?

Where'd you grow up again?

- Bridgeport, Connecticut.

- Bridgeport, Connecticut.

- A very industrial city, you know, has had its great years.

- Yep.

- It had some really rough times like a lot of our cities and just trying to get through that environment, single mom, oldest of three boys, and really the importance of things like JA, Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers, Big Sisters really kind of helped me navigate through that journey successfully.

- James Horne, President and CEO of Junior Achievement of New Jersey.

Thank you, James.

We'll talk again soon.

- Steve, thanks a lot for having me on and look forward to coming back and giving an update sometime in the future.

- Absolutely.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

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