Students Give Executives a Dose of Big Business

A group of business-minded high school students arrived Monday at Precision Dynamics Corp. with one goal in mind: To learn how they could buy out the medical supplies company.

As part of the Accounting Career Awareness Program--a local arm of the National Assn. of Black Accountants--38 minority students spent the morning touring the manufacturing business and attending meetings with the company’s financial executives.

“The students had a chance to see how a company runs and learn how the product is made, from beginning to end,” said Doris Johnson, director of the business equity center at Cal State Northridge. “The adults who accompanied the students were just as wowed as the students.”

The ACAP participants, who come from all over Los Angeles and live in CSUN dorms during the one-week program, will also attend workshops with business leaders, participate in discussion groups and work in computer labs.

On Friday, the young entrepreneurs will present detailed “buy-out plans” to judges from five prestigious accounting firms.

ACAP was established in 1980 to attract minorities to the accounting field. The organization awards up to 100 scholarships annually to high school students who have demonstrated an aptitude for careers in accounting. The stipend covers room and board, tuition, books and transportation costs.

“The students get a real-world application of the case they’re studying,” said Charles V. Daniel, ACAP’s head counselor. “It’s no longer a fictitious company they’re looking at--they can now actually feel what’s going on. They can see what it’s like to be part of corporate America.”

Daniel added that the goal of the ACAP program is to help the students become productive citizens and to expose them to experiences they don’t normally get.