June 16, 2006
Leadership Academy Prepares Seniors for College, Business and Beyond
By Rob Meyer

The McCombs School of Business hosted the second annual Young Leaders Entrepreneurial Academy (YLEA) June 4-16, a program aimed at introducing high school seniors to the world of business and the merits of pursuing a college degree.

Seeing a basic need for Hispanic youths to be more knowledgeable about business, Henry Cisneros, former mayor of San Antonio and cabinet member in the Clinton administration, was the catalyst behind starting YLEA.

With the help of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and sponsorship from the Kauffman Foundation and the Ford Foundation, YLEA was launched last summer with 13 students.

This year participation increased to 28 students recruited from San Antonio and Laredo and chosen from the top 10 percent of their classes, with an emphasis on picking first-generation university students.

“Many of our students are not in the habit of discussing business issues—interest rates, the stock market, international business development—around the dinner table with their families,” said Regina Hughes, YLEA’s director and finance lecturer at McCombs.

“After our program,” Hughes continued, “students return home and can interpret the evening news, the stock market report, and the arrows going up and down representing stock price movements of major corporations. Each student of the academy feels more empowered to make better decisions regarding college, careers and personal development—what more could we ask?”

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The students started each day of the two-week camp reading and discussing stories from the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. The balance of each day was then filled with lectures from the McCombs faculty, hands-on work such as performing marketing surveys and presenting business plans, and field trips to local businesses.

By the end of the first week, some of the students already had an eye toward a career in business.

“I’m definitely interested in working for an advertising company as a market researcher,” said Leslie Vergara from Laredo. “Interacting with people and studying their lifestyles is appealing to me.”

Whitney Bruns from San Antonio said she wanted to study business management and law. “I want to be my own boss.”

Hughes said that YLEA is different from other business camps in that it doesn’t end after the summer session. The program includes Saturday classes throughout the school year in the students’ hometowns to help guide them through the college applications process. Graduation from YLEA is held in April. In the program’s first year, 12 of the 13 participants were accepted to four-year colleges around the country.

Kristie Loescher, a management lecturer at McCombs, taught several classes and served as on-site director of the program.

“It is a pleasure working with these bright, enthusiastic young people and introducing them both to college life and to various business topics,” Loescher said. “I love watching them light up with the new information, perspective, and confidence that they build over the two weeks of camp.”