Students learn the ropes during Ohio Business Week

The program, taking place at YSU, was started by a former professional baseball player.

By ANGIE SCHMITT

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — “Make it Berry Sensation!” was the cry from a Youngstown State University classroom.

Inside, nine high school students, taking part in Ohio Business Week’s Emerging Entrepreneurship Project, were having a debate. They’d traveled from across the state for a week of intensive business training. Now they were occupied launching a business of their own.

Known as Company “I,” the group calls their product “Soofah.” The design is simple enough: It’s a bath loofah with soap in the middle. Their plan is to market it through Avon cosmetics.

The hot topics of debate in Wednesday’s company meeting were possible scents and colors. But by today, they will have built a prototype, designed a business plan and created a marketing campaign.

On Saturday, the result of their work will be displayed at a judged trade show.

It’s the type of training that Ohio Business Week supporters believe changes lives. The nonprofit foundation exists solely to provide hands-on business training to Ohio high schoolers through summer programs.

The program

It was started by Ron Nischwitz, who played pro baseball for four years with the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians in the 1960s. Nischwitz never forgot his experience as a company adviser at Washington Business Week in 1986.

Since 1989, the program has educated more than 5,200. This week’s participants were all awarded a $450 scholarship. For an additional charge, they can earn transferable college credit with the program, said spokeswoman Michelle Jones.

“We want the students to leave with a better understanding of business,” she said. “We want them to leave being able to fit into the business world and succeed.”

Throughout the week, about 80 students will have negotiated their ways through company meetings, lectures from business leaders on personal finance and business communications. All their work, as well as social activities and meals, is taking place in the halls of Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center.

At just 15, Company I’s chief marketing officer Raquel Fuentes has big ambitions. She wants to be a lawyer and own her own law firm.

For now, the Cleveland resident is building her business know-how and arguing on behalf of attaching an adjective to the “White” soofah.

It would be more appealing if it was called “Creamy Vanilla White,” she suggests. Not everyone agrees.

But company adviser Keri DeVelvis, of Abbott Labs in Columbus, intervenes.

DeVelvis is not only a mentor but a marketing consultant for the group. As brands manager of new products in the Ross Production line of Abbott, DeVelvis agrees that the use of descriptive adjectives can be an effective marketing tool.

The group moves on to naming their fuchsia soofah.

Company I member Nichole Hickman, 17, of Columbus, said she’s enjoyed the social aspects of the program. Business Week participants took part in a dance party Wednesday night and a Jello-eating contest that afternoon. But what impresses Hickman most about the program is the technical training.

“I’ve done business programs before, but nothing like this,” she said. “It gets into it with the finance. I’ve never really tried to do the intricate research.”

aschmitt@vindy.com