Fletcher's Kitchen & Tap Tour

Mr. Derek Betz, Owner
Friend of CEO

This week the class went to our first restaurant: Fletcher's Kitchen & Tap (a popular family owned restaurant in Belleville). He told the students about his background, gave time proven advice, and showed the students around. Thank you Mr. Betz for speaking with and letting us tour your restaurant! We appreciate it and had a great time.

 Written by Melony Allen & Edited by Jessica Stern

Mr. Mike Barnell

President & Chief Executive Officer
Precision Practice Management – Investor

On Wednesday, we heard from Mr. Mike Barnell; one of the partners of Precision Practice Management. He told the students to “put your heart and soul into” and have passion for what you do. He explained that he never thought that he would be working on the business aspect of Precision Practice, a medical billing and coding company, but has since become President and CEO and is passionate about his work.

 Written by Montez Douglas & Edited by Jessica Stern

KMOV

Steve Harris, News Reporter and Steve Gurley, Cameraman
Friend of CEO

Also on Wednesday, the students welcomed KMOV to Precision Practice Management. Malik and Heather were interviewed by Steve Harris, along with Mrs. Siebers and Mrs. Eichholz. The students will be on the five o'clock news on Thursday, November 12, to show the public more about what CEO is.

 Written by Heather Gosebrink & Edited by Jessica Stern

Governor French Academy Tour

Mr. Phillip Paeltz, Headmaster
Governor French Academy – Investor

On Thursday, CEO visited Governor French Academy.  There was an abundance of information that we learned while we were there.  All 14 of us come from either the public Belleville High Schools or Althoff, so visiting a school with a different atmosphere like Governor French Academy was a cool experience. The Headmaster, Phillip Paeltz. taught at East for many years before starting Governor French in 1983.  He started it with a passion for teaching and a love for children.  All of us agree that it changed the way we looked at both schools and the overall principle of school.  After touring the facility, we met back down in the main room for questions.  Thank you, Mr. Paeltz.

Written by Stephen Toenjes & Edited by Jessica Stern

A Big Thank You

Rauckman logo

The CEO class would like to thank Jim and Shirley Rauckman from Rauckman Utility Products for sponsoring our CEO shirts this year.  They look awesome! Thanks again for all of your support!

Just a Reminder

Our door is always open. Entrepreneurs, visitors, guests, and friends are welcome and highly encouraged to join us. Drop in and share your story with our students or participate in our class discussions. Check out the schedule on the website.

If you are interested in hosting our students for an educational visit about your business operations or would like to speak to the class and share your story, please email the facilitator, Julie Siebers, at jsiebers@bths201.org or call or text her at 618.719.3177.

Journal Tidbits

Getting the opportunity to see a restaurant was very cool. The way they run their business is different than other companies we have learned about this year. Derek Betz had a lot of informational financial pieces to share with the group, as well as his personal restaurant and how they are successful. Derek has not always been successful. He said many times that he has failed, with the St. Louis Fletcher's they had tried opening. There are a lot of shady people out there who don't tell the truth. In the business world you need to make sure that you have everything in writing and all the legal issues are correct. Supply and demand is very important when starting a restaurant or a product or business. If you want to make money and be successful you have to find what people want. If people want something they will go to it or use it and buy it. The four team building traits Derek uses with his employees are pride, teamwork, excitement, and accountability. I also found the concept of “Pig” and “Chicken” committed interesting. The saying goes along with our class project. We need to make sure that everyone is pig committed for our ideas and putting this together.  

Written by Heather Gosebrink

What makes CEO, well CEO?  I was thinking about this question throughout the week.  I was reminded myself why I joined the program: to learn about what business is about and how it impact the world.  Sometimes, though, I begin to wonder if I can really handle the concept.  One thing I learned is to be patient with people.  Everyone has an opinion and others contradict it.  It is hard to grasp someone's idea and look at the bigger the picture.  When I see the bigger the picture, it is actually pretty extraordinary.  Business will have people of all different ethnicities, genders, and suggestions.  At the end of the day, it will help shape and expand the idea of it.  It will become better.  So, what is the meaning of CEO?  CEO is the opportunity for young adults to see the world beyond the surface.  The world is full of chances and this program is a gateway to them.  

Written by Sandy Amorado

I'm so glad we got to go to a food place because I actually learn some new things. Other business haven't really talked much about supply and demand. Mr. Betz had a whole topic on it and it was very helpful. You don't really think about it but supply and demand is in every business and it's very important. There was one thing that really stuck out to me and it was a quote he said, " truth has to be a state of mind". I don't know why it stuck out to me so much but it's so true. He was talking a lot about how his employees should act and I agree totally. He said they should have pride in their job, have good teamwork, have to be excited about their job and also be accountable for their actions. That's key to have to keep a culture good in a business.  

Written by Emma Gregowicz

At Fletcher’s Restaurant I learned some of the struggles behind operating a restaurant as well as owning a building. I had no idea that there were so many different taxes involved in owning a building. There’s land tax, property tax, sales tax, and I’m sure there’s other kinds of taxes. When starting a restaurant it’s all about location. Their first location was great; they noticed that there was a huge demand for a sit down restaurant that offered fresh food. One of their other locations was a bust. It was inside a mall so there wasn’t much traffic and the person selling the property lied about some of the finances. I love hearing about business’s culture values and Fletcher’s has some good ones; some of theirs are pride, teamwork, excitement, and accountability. I believe you need all those to have a positive and welcoming business environment.  

Mr. Phillip Paeltz, the headmaster of Governor French Academy said something that really stood out to me. All the business we have heard from have all been successful, but we haven’t heard from any business that has failed. We learn as much from our success as we do from our failure. Mr. Paeltz’s school is a great example of a well oiled machine. The students know when to get quiet and when he’s not in the classroom they start working on their work without him. I think that’s so incredible. 

Written by Montez Douglas

This week was an eventful week for CEO. On Monday, we went to our very first restaurant. It is one of the most popular restaurants in the Belleville area called Fletcher's. It is a high end casual dining restaurant. I enjoyed learning about the many failures of Mr. Fletcher and how he came to success. He discussed how he put his trust into the wrong people and it cost him a lot of money. He stressed how important it was to create a strong foundation and culture in your business. He also discussed the difference between renting and owning a property. He seemed like a very smart and driven man who has a great passion for what he does.  

Written by Melony Allen

This week was a fun week. I like being out and visiting places. Fletchers was a cool place to visit because my uncle started a restaurant but failed. I liked how he talked about key terms we should know. I feel in this class we get a lot of hands-on experiences, but we don’t get textbook knowledge so it was nice that he explained some of the terms to us. I liked his four values of pride, teamwork, excitement, and accountability. I think those apply to anything you do in life. I also liked his insecurity-confidence-arrogance scale. I think that has a lot to do with self-evaluation. Which I liked how the PPM owners talked about and think we should work into our class. I liked the pig committed vs. chicken committed. We will all have to be pig committed once we start our personal businesses but I think it’s a good thing to start now during our class business. I thought it was interesting that he did a lot of reading. I think that goes back to do your research, not only about the product that you’re selling but just the business world in general.

Mike Barnell had so many good things to say. I liked his sports analogy because it made it easier for me to relate. A reoccurring theme I keep hearing is to have good culture. The inbox vs. outbox method I thought was cool. I think that’s something we should implement into our class. Especially when we’re making big decisions and people find something wrong it.  

Written by Aliyah Gillespie

Tuesday was a trip to Fletcher’s where we learned about a true entrepreneur named Mr. Betz. This is a man who quit a steady corporate job to try and open his own restaurant and make his own decisions. He was one of my favorite speakers because he didn’t take up a bunch of time talking about his story of how he got to where he is. He talked about skills that we need to learn to be successful which I really appreciated. Then Wednesday we had a partner from Precision Practice come in and talk to us about where he had gone and the decisions he made to get there. I still personally don’t understand how people travel to such great places such as Washington D.C. and still manage to make it back to Belleville. 

Written by David Rauckman

Derek Betz, owner of Fletcher’s made a huge impact on me last week. Nearly all of advice was beneficial, even though I don’t plan to go into the restaurant business anytime soon. His methods to focus on have already come into play as I move forward with my business idea. I particularly focused on his four team building values which are : Pride, teamwork, excitement, and accountability. Pride is the measurement of how you talk about your place where you work when you not there. The question we must ask as a class is, do we have pride in ourselves or the class business and CEO? None of which are bad, I believe, but the to the degree of how much you show outside of the class. We know that teamwork and excitement go hand-in-hand. I’d like to see some more excitement from the group. And last, accountability is continuing your education because you don’t know everything. To me that means, once I have my business established, I need to hire people who have done it for a long time, because they know more than me. And not being afraid to let them show me how to run it better than I could goes back to Mr. Raukman’s idea of never being afraid to let someone make money. Teamwork. I made a vow this weekend to be ‘ pig determined’ form now on! I have to in order to make anything I do be a success. The best part of this ideology is that it applies to everything worth doing in life, if it’s a good thing.

Even though Mr. Barnell was unexpected, he still gave some worthy advice. Being an older gentlemen, he definitely had a lot to say. Some of his advice that I focused on was “the industry that I do business in will likely change over the years.” I think that it’s great to consider that inevitability, because it can either help you or hurt you if you in the future. Another new piece of advice was the “inbox and outbox.” I want for my team to be able to have solutions for their problems instead of dumping them on me when I create my business. The same thing should apply to our class too. It’s a great tool to hold everyone accountable when they present their issues with our class business. The last thing I’d like to mention Mr. Barnell said was, “No one is going to help a business start up if they don’t believe in the person starting it.” WOW! Spot on. To take it even further, and let’s use our class business for example. If we say that WE don’t even believe in ourselves, why should people pay to come to our even? Why should they even come? Confidence is the key to succeeding at anything you do.   

Written by Malik Marks-McRath