Collbran Job Corps student, Jeromie Garoutte, was selected to be a Residential Advisor at Junior Achievement’s Business Week, at the Johnson & Wales University campus in Denver this summer. The apprenticeship-style program is designed to teach high school students the concepts of business, entrepreneurship and leadership. During the week-long immersion camp, 171 students live on the campus where they attend lectures, network with business leaders and work on one of three projects.

            The projects included creating a new smoothie flavor for Jamba Juice, developing a “don’t text and drive” campaign for State Farm and engineering a gaming app for Microsoft. For each of the projects, students had to develop a marketing strategy, a budget, create ways to measure the results and present to a panel of judges. The winners of the Jamba Juice challenge will have their flavor in all metro-Denver locations and receive 20 percent of the smoothie’s sales.

            Residential Advisors (RA) have to be over 18 and display leadership qualities. RA’s are on active duty from 6 p.m. until midnight and one night each RA is on duty from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. The first night of Business Week RA’s judge an ice breaker at which students create something out of “junk” provided by Junior Achievement. RA’s patrol the dorms, constantly interacting with students, throughout the week and earn $400.

            Garoutte said his Collbran Job Corps training prepared him, “Knowing what needs to be confronted and what doesn’t need to be confronted.”           

                Denny Clark, Volunteer Manager, Junior Achievement, Rocky Mountain, Inc., and Supervisory to the RA’s, said, “Given the RA’s informal relationship with the students throughout JA’s Business Week, Jeromie was able to interact with many students in a very positive nature.”