A business-oriented summer

By Daily Press staff

Santa Monica College’s business school completed another summer session working with teens.

A Venice area student, Garrett Okita-Abe, 15, a sophomore at Venice High School, was selected to be valedictorian of the SMC site for the Summer Business Institute (SBI) of the Academy of Business Leadership (ABL). Okita-Abe, a survivor of two heart surgeries at 11, was recognized at SBI’s cap-and-gown commencement ceremony honoring 214 graduates at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles this past weekend.

Okita-Abe was among 23 SBI students at the SMC site this summer. SBI’s students, ages 10 to 18, are Southern California high school and middle school students. Many of them are overlooked but have high potential.

They have completed a rigorous, seven-week program that teaches leadership, values and the principles of business and finance, in classrooms at five Southern California college and university campuses. The students hail from 92 middle and high schools across Southern California, 52 of which are in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The core of SBI is learning about values, business and finance through lectures and competitive, hands-on exercises that include managing a fictitious stock portfolio of $100,000, and assembling and presenting business plans for firms that the students invented.

The SBI program is credited by many business executives with giving the students a 10- to 20-year head start in business. Exposure to academic campuses, corporate offices and SBI’s challenging curriculum are designed so students, especially those facing socio-economic and educational obstacles, can reach goals that otherwise seem impossible, SBI officials said.

“By what we show them and by posing hard, but doable challenges where they achieve immediate success, we help them realize that their dreams can become goals,” said Anna Ouroumian, the president of ABL. “We show them how it is done and how they can do it, then we put them on the path to dreams they once thought were unattainable.”

Ouroumian designed ABL’s approach and curriculum on the assumption that all the students are leaders and up to the challenge.

“If you treat them as leaders up front, and you set high expectations, in a loving and nurturing environment, miracles happen,” Ouroumian said.

The graduation ceremony included several guest speakers, including Maria Contreras-Sweet, cofounder of Promerica Bank and Fortius holdings, former Secretary of California’s Business, Transportation and Housing Agency; John Hope Bryant of Operation Hope; and Keith Ferazzi, author of the best-selling self-improvement book “Never Eat Alone.”

SBI classes were held on the campuses of the University of Southern California, SMC and the California State University at Los Angeles, Dominguez Hills and Fullerton. The program also included frequent field trips to companies that included State Street, Southern California Edison, Merrill Lynch, the Capital Group Companies, First Pacific Advisors and American Honda, as well as in-class appearances by seasoned business owners, corporate executives and community leaders.

The SBI has graduated 1,800 students and has reached more than 46,000 through workshops and presentations at hundreds of middle and high schools. Better than 99 percent of ABL students graduate from high school, and 87 percent attend colleges and universities nationwide.



Researcher takes top honor

By Daily Press staff

This year a RAND researcher reached the top in national honors.

RAND Corporation policy researcher Kathryn Pitkin Derose has been named one of 56 recipients of the 2005 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and is the first RAND researcher to receive the prestigious award.

The award, presented at a White House ceremony, recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government for scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Nine federal departments and agencies select PECASE nominees. Derose was nominated by the Department of Health and Human Services/National Institutes of Health.

Derose’s award gives her five years of supplemental funding for her current analytical work as principal investigator on a study RAND is conducting for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The study examines the capacity of urban religious congregations for HIV prevention and care.

“We are very proud that Kathryn was recognized for her exceptional research in health care and HIV prevention,” said RAND Vice President Robert Brook, who is director of RAND Health. “She is one of many RAND Health researchers who are making a difference in addressing some of the most important health challenges facing the world today.”

Before completing her Ph.D. and accepting a position as associate social scientist at RAND in 2003, Derose conducted research on several projects at RAND, including serving as project director of the Los Angeles Mammography Promotion in Churches Program. Prior to coming to RAND, Derose worked for nearly six years in community health development in Latin America.

Derose’s other research at RAND includes projects involving community-based health programs, health care policy for the uninsured in Miami-Dade County, and health care access and quality for Hispanics and immigrants.

Derose received a B.A. in Latin American studies from Duke University. She received a master’s of public health degree in population and family health, and a Ph.D. in health services from UCLA.

RAND Health, a division of the RAND Corporation, is the nation’s largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care quality, costs and delivery, among other topics.