Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of addressing the 2010 Junior Achievement (JA) National Leadership Conference in Minneapolis – more than 250 dedicated JA staff members who are helping to shape the future of American business, and to ensure the strength of the free enterprise system, the key to the American dream,  is alive and well.  As a current business owner and former Junior Achievement parent, I know how important and influential programs like JA are to inspiring creative thinking and inventiveness. It’s programs like JA that arm up-and-coming entrepreneurs with the knowledge and know-how to take a simple business idea and turn it into a successful enterprise.

Education is inexorably linked to our economic success, and that is why the National Chamber Foundation has collaborated with JA to sponsor and support our nation’s budding entrepreneurs through the innovative high school program JA Be Entrepreneurial.  Developed to educate and encourage high school students to plan and launch their own businesses, JA Be Entrepreneurial is helping to boost schools’ curricula and create awareness around free enterprise through programs, events, and contests that engage our nation’s youth. It challenges students to think, build, strive, and achieve, and it exposes students to knowledgeable volunteers from a variety of backgrounds, including established entrepreneurs.

The program has experienced great success since it was first launched last fall, and as a result, we are eager to expand our reach – by spreading the word about the program to over 17,000 small businesses and 2,500 chambers of commerce and associations across the country.  We want to ensure that a greater number of young, aspiring entrepreneurs receive the foundation they need to start their own businesses and succeed in the workplace.  And by continuing to educate and motivate our students, we can unleash the full potential of our free enterprise system in a way that preserves the promise of the American Dream for generations to come.

Throughout my career, I have heard countless people say how much they care about education, and how they want to do something, to get involved in an active way.  Well, JA is that “something” tangible, worthwhile, and eminently doable for so many people – it is doing something long-lasting, something that supports our free enterprise system, and something that changes lives.