Mr. Thouvenot welcomed the Belleville CEO students and explained how his company started back in 1946 as Wade Engineering. Now they have 5 offices with 90 employees which includes 30 licensed engineers.
November 2017
John Lewis coordinated the pieces in Artitorium and Jake Roche worked the area during the event.
February 2018
Mr. Twente scanned the room to show us how they use the latest technology to solve their customers' problems.
November 2017
Mr. Bauer shared that Empire Comfort Systems has just celebrated their 85th anniversary last August 2017. Mr. Bauer represents the fourth generation of company ownership.
February 2018
Jake Roche
About Me
I am a senior attending Althoff Catholic High School. After hearing great reviews and talking to alumni of the class, I decided to apply for the CEO program to see if I would be cut out for the business world.
As an active member in my school community, I am a part of the Wilderness Adventure Club, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a member of the varsity scholar bowl team, and play soccer and baseball. I am also a member of the Blessed Sacrament Parish Youth Group.
I am a very caring, outgoing, and someone who will give their all to help the group succeed. When I finish high school, I plan on majoring in business management, computer engineering, or sports journalism.
About My Business
My Featured Journal Entries
This week during CEO we met with Keith and Mary Dahm-Schell of the Edge, Mike Dunnigan of Trinity Financial, and Renae Eichholz with Copper Fire.
We met with Keith and Mary at The Edge on Monday. We had a blast because we were able to ride their go-karts and have a great experience. One of the things that they touched on when they talk to us was that you have to continue to improve your business so it doesn't say stagnant. This is important because if you don't try to improve your business nothing will come of it because it will never grow and it'll just stay where it's at. They also told us to always be brainstorming on new ideas and learn about other people's businesses to see if you can take something from their business and apply to yours.
We met with Mike Dunnigan from Trinity Financial. We were able to learn about the stock market side of a business and how as a person you should try to invest and as a business how you should try and manage the stock of your business. One thing I was able to learn from talking to him was that the stock market is always going to be hit-and-miss and with your business you need to be able to ride the waves of your stock going down and up.
When we talked to Renae on Friday at CopperFire, she kind of said the same thing Mary and Keith were saying on Monday. She told us that you can always have your business staying in the same place it is because when people become used to it they will want to move on to something different and may not come back to your business. She also told us that we shouldn’t be afraid to try something different. The reason why she said that was because they're serving Excel Bottling Co. soda products instead of Coke or Pepsi products which is something completely different and very refreshing. I would like to thank all three businesses for having us this week and I'm super ecstatic for the final week of CEO I can't wait to see what it has in store.
05/04/2018
I think that the trade show was a success and not just because of how many people came but because of how well our personal businesses did at the trade show. For me personally it was a success because I was able to sell a lot of stickers to many people that I would not have been able to sell to in public. At the trade show alone I was able to sell 36 on my stickers and that was almost double the amount of stickers I had sold over that previous week. I would like to thank everyone who came to the trade show personally because you are helping young entrepreneurs start our businesses and also boosting our confidence in selling our products.
04/20/2018
This week during CEO we were able to meet with Greg Bach, of Gas Light Vinyl, and Eric Schauster the assistant director of Economic Development, Planning and Zone Department for the City of Belleville. When we talked to Greg Bach on Tuesday we were able to get a lot of quality information from him about how to start a business and how to keep it running. I think we were all able to relate with him a little bit because she went through the same thing we are kind of going through now with not really knowing how to start a business at all but still having an idea that you want to pursue and try and start a business with. When he started his business three years ago he had no idea how to run it but he knew that if you was able to get this business running that it would be great. I think everyone in the from Mr. Bach’s talk on Tuesday because we are all kind of in his shoes now and are learning how to run a business but if we continue to let it grow we ourselves will grow along with it.
When we talked to Mr. Shauster on Tuesday we were able to discuss and recognize the importance of your business. he explained to all of us how where you have your business can affect the tax breaks you get and also what kind of benefits you can get from having your business in a certain place. I think it was very important for us to hear this because a lot of us don't know how we're supposed to open a business and don't know how the positioning of your business can really benefit you but also does prosperity of your business and the future of it as well. For me personally it was a great learning opportunity to hear everything he was able to say and I think I was able to benefit from a lot of the information that he gave us. I think the information he gave us can really help a lot of the people in this class because I think that anyone who is going to need to open an actual store front is going to have to use what he gave us and knowing it now rather than later is really going to help us improve and help our business excel.
03/23/2018
This week during CEO it was very interesting and we were able to use a lot of the time to spend quality working time on our personal businesses. We were also able to meet with Pat Mathis and Kevin Richter of MM&R, JoAnne DiMaggio-May, who helped us with our personal business plans, and Hamilton Callison of BreakThru Beverage.
When we met with Mr. Mathis and Mr. Richter, they gave us a lot of great information on what to look out for legally when we are starting our own businesses. They also told us that we should always show confidence when we're going to any kind of interview. the reason for that is because it shows the person who's interviewing you that you are confident and are willing to do whatever it takes. Another thing that was mentioned while we talked to them was the commencement address that Barbara Bush gave at Wellesley College. The reason why it stood out to me was because in the speech it said to cherish the relationships you make over your life and I think that it is really important that we as a class do this because we are all right now working on our networking skills and we need to remember the connections we have made from this class years from now.
When we talked to Hamilton Callison this week two things that stood out to me that he's talked about were that people will do business with people and that we should learn how to use Excel because it'll be very handy when we are hired by a company. I think the first point is very important because people really do like to do business with genuinely caring and nice people because they know that if they're ever in need of something that someone they can rely on I think that's something we as a class need to remember as we're making our personal business as we need to know who's going to be there to help us when we are hitting a rough patch with the business.
03/09/2018
This week during CEO we only had three days for class and one of those days we were able to meet with Mayor Eckert, who is the mayor of Belleville. When we talked with Mayor Eckert on Wednesday he gave a lot of great tips on how to run a successful business and have a successful life. There were three things that he said to me that stood out were that you have to have good communication, good character traits, and you have to have a vision of what you want to do. I believe that what he said with those three tips are very important and will definitely help us while we are trying to finish up this class business and start on our personal businesses. The reason I believe that is because if you are not good at communicating your ideas or you're not a good person or you don't have a good vision you might be able to get your business off the ground.
On Thursday and Friday we worked on trying to figure out what we need to do next to continue setting up for our class business I believe that we are making progress and that we are going to be able to be raring to go when February 10th comes around .
01/19/2018
This is our first full week back for CEO and we were able to meet with some great and very interesting people. This week we met with Mark Turner, Mike McManus, and Anne Thomure of Memorial Hospital, Thad Payne of St Clair Country Club, and JoAnne DiMaggio-May to discuss with us our business plan for Belleville’s Got Talent.
On Tuesday when we met with the people from Memorial Hospital they explained to us how important it is to market for your specific business and not just to put it under the general idea of marketing. I think this is very important for us as a class to learn because we are going to need it for continuing to market the class business and for us later when we are marketing our own personal businesses to others.
On Wednesday we met with Thad Payne from the St. Clair Country Club and we talked to him about proper etiquette at meals and what utensils are used for what during the meals. I think it was very important for all of us to learn the skill before we have our class business because we will be eating dinner there and I also think it is important because we may be able to use this valuable skill later down the line when we are older and own our own individual businesses.
Finally on Thursday we talked to JoAnne DiMaggio-May who helped us understand how to set up a business plan and how we can do it on our own for our class business and personal businesses. This is a very vital skill for a business owner to know and I am glad we are learning how to do it now so in the future it is not as much of a hassle as it may be the first time. I think as a whole this week was great and I cannot wait to get back into the groove of CEO after coming back from this long Christmas break.
01/12/2018
The last two weeks for CEO have been great and very interesting for everyone in the class. We as a class over the past few weeks at PPM have learned a lot about each other and a lot about our class business. This past week was our last week of PPM and I would like to say thank you to Renae for letting us stay there for nine weeks and that was great being there. Over the last two weeks we met with Tom Farquhar, Renae Eichholz, Matthew Warren, and Doug and Geri Boyer.
All three of them gave the class some information that was very insightful and helpful for class business. When we talk to Tom Farquhar he told us that one of the main ways to keep a business was to have good connections. For us as a class business this is very important for us to be able to talk to new businesses and be able to find new partners to help with sponsor Belleville’s Got Talent. When we talked to Renae about how PPM get started she told us that one thing to do is to never give up on anything and that you should always try to do what you love to do. I think this is very important for all of us because we are all getting ready to start our personal businesses and a lot of us may not know what to do for them so her saying that is very encouraging and helpful to us for finding out what we want to do with our personal businesses. When we talked with Doug and Geri at the Kings house on Friday one of the main points they brought up about being a successful business was that you have to be calm, cool, and collected. Another thing they talk to us about was that we should never get too stressed out over anything and that if we do it is really good for you to step back and take a few minutes to reset yourself so you can become calm again
I’d like to want to again think the Renae and everyone at PPM for having us it was a great nine weeks there and lessons we learned will not be forgotten. I cannot wait for after Christmas when we get started again in January because will be in for a great ride and we should excel.
12/17/2017
This week during CEO it was very short but it was also very educational and gave us information that we can still use to better ourselves and our class and personal businesses. This week we met with Thouvenot, Wade & Moerchen and Auffenberg Auto Mall to talk to them who they run their businesses and what they do. One point both of them brought up was that you have to be willing to adapt to change and I think that is going to be very vital for our class business and later on down the line for our own personal businesses. I believe that this will help us with our personal businesses because if we want them to succeed we are going to need to change and adapt to whatever is happening technology wise or however our field our business is in seems fit. That is the only way you're going to be able to have a successful business and that is what both of these companies have shown. I also believe that it can help us in our class business because we could come up with an idea later down the line and we may have to tweak what we are doing for the class business to make our it successful. I think that Ian and Nick know this and that if it comes up later down the line the whole class will be willing to adjust and help contribute to make the class successful.
11/24/2017
Over the past two weeks during CEO we have met with many business owners who have talked about many different business ideas and ways to run a business. The people that we have met with over the last two weeks are Derek Betz of Fletcher's Kitchen & Tap, Amy Tarr of Midland Institute of Entrepreneurs, Wendy Witte of the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation, and Jason Eding PPM's Director of IT. All four of them brought something different and unique to the table when they talk to us and I think that everything all of them talked about are going to be very helpful going forward with our class business.
When we met with Derek Betz of Fletcher's one of the main points he hit on was that there are people who are pig committed and chicken committed in the industry. What he means by that is if your pig committed it means you're going to be going after your goal with everything you've got. If your chicken committed it means that you are committed to the idea but you not necessarily wanting to be as involved as the pig committed person.
When we talked to Amy Tarr of Midland, she told us we have to have the tough conversations because some of the stuff conversations are going to be the ones I get the ball rolling on the project and if you're not willing to do that you may not ever be able to get the project off the ground. I think that's going to be really important for us during this project because we have to be willing to to be asking each other are you going to do this or you can do that and we need that person to be able to tell us truthfully that they are. Sometimes during this process we may even need to call someone out because we believe that they're not stepping up to the challenge and then we asked them to step it up we're doing it because we want to see them succeed and we want to see the business succeed.
When we talked to Wendy she explained to us how to run another profit and how to register a not-for-profit and that's something we need to look at as we continue this process for the class business.
Finally when we talked to Jason he gave us some very insightful information on how to have a great interview for a job. Some of the tips some of us already knew but other tips were very insightful and new to a lot of us. One point that Jason brought up while he was talking about how to interview well was that you should act as though you really want the job. I think that for this class business all of us need to act as if we want this to succeed because if even one of us doesn't act like we wanted to or isn't as interested as everyone else it may not succeed like we wanted to. That also brings us back to being pig committed or chicken committed. If not everyone is pig committed than the class business may not succeed as well as we want it to.
11/17/2017
This week during CEO was very exciting and extremely inspirational because at the beginning of the week we went to the TrepStart at St. Louis University, then we talked to the people at the Belleville Chambers of Commerce and finished off with Kevin Nicol from Nicol Financial Services. Also during this week we have continue to work on our class business and if so hard to narrow down some of the places we will hold the event at. Out of everything that happened this week though the TrepStart in St. Louis was probably one of the most inspirational events I've ever gone to.
On Monday when we went to the TrepStart event at St. Louis University, we got to talk to many young and inspiring CEOs about their business and how they were able to run their business at a young age. Before we went to our breakout sessions though we got to talk to Jeff Platt, the owner of Sky Zone, who told us how he started his business. Many of the things Jeff told us about 4 very inspiring such as that growth is painful. I believe this is true because rows can sometimes be awkward especially when you're running a business because most of the time when you're growing you haven't been there before and you're kind of confused on what you're supposed to do from that point on. Jeff also gave us three points of topic to follow when we're trying to evolve our business. The first one being to trust your gut and to take a leap of faith. I believe this will be very important in vital to our class business and our own personal businesses because we will have many people telling us to do different things and the best thing to do in that situation is to trust your gut and find your own solution. His second point was is that nobody accomplishes anything great on their own. I believe this is very true and something that all of us are going to need to understand and believe in when we are doing our class business. Jeff's third and final point was to be resilient and through failure you will succeed. If we believe in these three points as a class I believe that our class business will go very far.
Next were our breakout sessions and for mine I had Joshua Williams and Zandra Cunningham. They were both phenomenal speakers and I got great ideas and helpful tips from both of them. When I went and listened to what Joshua Williams had to say I was very inspired and wanted to implement some of the stuff he said in my life. Joshua talked about leadership and how it is necessary in entrepreneurship. Joshua said that having leadership helps you honor commitments and helps you make decisions which I think is going to be very vital to what we are doing. Another thing he said was to not make the same mistake twice because then that shows that you didn't learn anything from the first time.
11/03/2017
This week during CEO was very exciting and had some great learning experiences. For this week in CEO we moved from Allsup to Precision Practice Management and will be here for the remainder of the second quarter. During CEO this week we met with Patty Gregory, who is the Art on the Square chair, John Perles from Momentum Builders, and we also got to talk with Renae Eichholz of Precision Practice Management.
On Monday when Patty Gregory came, she showed us how non-for-profits work and told us why you still have to run a non-for-profit like a business. While she was talking she gave some great advice for our CEOs of our class business that I think they should take to heart. She said that you should always surround yourself with talent and be willing to give the praise away. I think one thing that our CEOs have done really well is just that, they understand that they have a lot of smart people around them and I think that they know they can trust us. Another thing she told us, while she was talking about Art on the Square, was that you have to get the emotional buy-in of the community and have the ripple effect. This will be helpful to us to understand because we are trying to do the Belleville’s Got Talent show for our class business and if we want this to succeed we have to get the buying of the community and get them to be able to talk about it to other people.
When we talked to John on Wednesday he gave us a lot of great advice for our class business and for our own personal businesses as well. One thing he told us was that people are more capable than they realize and that a better you can change the world. I think that is very important during this time of our class business because we are all a little bit unsure if we are going to be able to do this and I think that we have to realize that we are all a lot more capable than we think we are and that we should have confidence that each and every one of us will be able to accomplish this. He also told us to understand our abilities and to use them to our fullest and I think that will be helpful while we are doing the class business.
10/27/2017
Over the past two weeks during CEO we have met with different people who have very different businesses but they have also given us as a class a great piece of advice. Their words of advice has been don't give up and don't be afraid of failure. I think that those words will be crucial and very important and what we are going to be doing over the next few weeks.
As of now and CEO we are starting our class business and for a lot of us we have never done something this big or this challenging before. So for a lot of us this will be a new experience where we will have to learn how to do some new things along the way and there could be some mistakes made. And I think was a lot of the businesses that we have talked to in the past two weeks they have said that they have had failures but they have not allowed them to get them down and they still persevered through them.
When we met with Neil Eilers, who made SuperBitKicks, He said that he experimented with a lot of different ways to put designs on the shoes and many of them failed but he continued to persevere and eventually figured out which way was the best way to put the designs on the shoes. Another business we met with was Rauckman Utility Products, who are owned by Jim and Shirley Rauckman. When they got started Jim had just left a very high-paying job and was now getting ready to start a new company, which can be very difficult. Jim told us that with any company there are going to be some failures but the difference between the good companies and the bad companies are the good companies are able to overcome those failures and are able to strive after them.
I think that if we are going to do something for our class business we are going to need that kind of attitude from everyone in the class, not just the CEOs. I think as a whole class we are going to need to come together and just get things done because if we are not able to we will not succeed the way we want to for our class business. I also believe that this lesson will be very valuable to each and every one of us for our own personal businesses. That is because we are not all Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and our personal business may not succeed in the beginning but we should still stick with the idea and try to make something out of it. I think that if all of us are able to do that for our personal businesses each and every one of our personal businesses will have a very high chance of succeeding.
10/20/2017
This week during CEO we had a lot of time to work on our class project and we also were able to talk to mentors about our class business and our personal businesses and get their input on it as well. Even though we were not able to come up with a set idea for our class business we were still able to get a lot of things done this week so much as we were able to elect our CEO, COO, and CFO. For a class business this year we elected Nick Lippert and Ian Hass to be our co-CEOs, we elected Jimmy Monken as our CFO, and we elected Martrell Robinson as our COO. We were also able to come up with many different and great ideas for the class business such as host an event with live entertainment.
We also met with a lot of the mentors this week who are going to help us with our own personal businesses and I think those experiences that we had on Thursday with them will really help drive us in our class business and in our own personal businesses. One of the lessons I took away from meeting with some of the mentors on Thursday was that you have to get your connections now so you are able to use them later in life.
10/06/2017
This week during CEO was very informative and I think really is going to help us in down the road with our badge project and projects that are coming up. This week we talked to Garrett Reuter from Greenfelder, Hemker & Gale, P.C., Ed Hoering from Clifton Larson Allen, and Brian Mentzer, who is an assistant superintendent for Belleville School District 201.
On Monday when we talked to Mr. Reuter about what he does as an attorney of law he said one of the things that helps him on the job is that he stays organized. He said that if he doesn't stay organized a lot of information can be lost and a lot of time can be lost looking for that information again. Another thing that he talked about was that you should always get your agreements with someone written down. On Tuesday we met with Ed Hoering from Clifton Larson Allen Can we talked about some very interesting things that I think will help push us in the right direction later in other projects. One of the things Mr. Hoering talked about was that you have to manage your cash flow. Another thing that ties into that is that you can't be dependent on your customer I think this is very important because if you get too dependent on the customer and expect a customer to give you everything that you want you could lose a lot of business not trying to go out and get new money. An important piece of information that he also told us was that you have to manage a risk and I think that in the badge project and in the later projects that are to come we will have to be able to weigh our risk with our rewards on some of the decisions we make.
On Friday when we talked to Mentzer, he broke down running a business into two simple things which were you either cut expenses or you bring in revenue. I think that is very important that we know that because we as a group May sometimes trying over-complicate things when we are trying to decide on what to do while we are working on our badge project. Another thing he said was that you may have to raise expenses to raise your profit.
09/17/2017
On Thursday we met up with Tyler Douthitt at his house to see how he runs his business and how he became the leading supplier of earbuds for Amazon in the U.S. Many of the points Tyler told us about were very helpful and will definitely help us with our badge project and other future projects that we have in store for later this year. One point that he brought up was that you have to test different ideas to see what will work. I think that is very big for us during this badge project because most of us have not done anything really with a business before and we don't know what to do. Another point that he brought up was not to neglect your existing customer. I believe that this is big because if you neglect your existing customer your business will soon fail because you won't be able to gain new customers because your existing customer won't give you good review and cause loss of business.
09/08/2017
This week the activities for CEO was even more exciting and even more enthralling than last week. On Wednesday we took a trip to Holiday World where we learned some things on how to make a business work. At Holiday World the presenters taught us that a team attitude and how we treat our customers can really affect how well or poorly our business will do. They also made it clear that getting to know your customer and appealing to the customer can really help your business succeed in the long run.
On Thursday we were at the Belleville School District building and we learned how social media can be used for good and bad. Some of the pros of social media are that it connects people, it is entertainment, it boosts self-esteem, and it can also make business easier. But we also learned that some cons of social media are that it can ruin your reputation, it can take away from your social life, and you can get involved with the wrong people. Also while we were at the district building we learned about soft skills. Soft skills are the way you interact with others and how first impressions matter in the business world. Some ways to make a good impression are to make eye contact, have a firm handshake, and to let them know that you respect and trust them.
On Friday we went to Egyptian Business Furniture in downtown Belleville and I believe that this experience really helped our whole class learn how to market a product and I believe that it will also help us with our badge project now and our class business project in the future. Also at Egyptian they showed us that making a brand isn't just coming up with a name it is also choosing how and where you want to market your brand and how to choose a color scheme that will appeal to the everyday customer. Another great piece of advice that the people at Egyptian gave us was to look at the cost of not doing something. What that means is to look at the cost of not doing a certain project could have a higher price in the long run than the price of actually doing the project.
09/01/2017