Junior Achievement special section
Alumni Spotlight
Checking in with Junior Achievement success stories
Contributed by Junior Achievement
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unior Achievement (JA) helps students develop successful financial management habits, empowers them to explore the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, and provides them with the skills necessary to succeed in a global workforce.

In addition, external evaluations have found that, overall, elementary students who participate in JA think about how the things learned in JA will be important later in life.

A significant number of middle school students develop or improve their entrepreneurial, leadership, and decision-making skills by participating in JA activities designed to give them financial literacy skills, prepare them to enter the workforce, and teach them about the pros and cons of entrepreneurship.

High school students who participate in JA agree that what they learn in the classroom is important to the success of their future. And research indicates that students engaged in JA are able to connect classroom lessons with real life experiences.

Overall, students at all grade levels report that JA fosters an attitude and provides knowledge that helps them set goals, seek out important information, and, ultimately, find success.

Here we recognize and celebrate Alaskan entrepreneurs who have been involved with JA either in the past or the present. In these Q&As, JA asks: Why it is important that this type of education continues to be taught in Alaska’s schools?

Megan Militello
Junior Achievement of Alaska
Megan Militello
Founder/CEO, Elevated Oats
JA: What inspired you to start your company?

Megan Militello: Elevated Oats was inspired by many aspects of my life. I had been working a government job and saw what food was being consumed and what was not. It was shocking to hear local Hawaiians say they had never heard of popular local fruits or vegetables. I recognized an opportunity in the marketplace. One recipe and a failed relationship opened the flood gates of ideas for a food manufacturing business that provided healthier breakfast/snack options. And thus, Elevated Oats was born.

JA: Why does Alaska need entrepreneurs?

Militello: I believe Alaska needs entrepreneurs to innovate and contribute to the growth of our economic future. For such a large state, Alaska is very small. Entrepreneurs of all sorts are in Alaska, hoping to make Alaska an even better place. Our local entrepreneurs are motivated differently than the large companies that already control the majority of business in the United States. I feel the business owners here care more about providing the best options for our community.

JA: What’s one thing that would surprise people about you/your company?

Militello: We’ve been very lucky with scaling our operation and having equipment that works shockingly well for our granola. We started cooking our granola in a regular at-home oven and have since moved to an old Pizza Hut conveyor belt oven. We had no clue if this huge oven would fit our needs—after a few test runs, we had the temperature and timing down. We’re about to upgrade to a double stack conveyor belt oven, improving the speed of our operation.

Mike Jipping
Founder/Soda Chef,
Beach Tribe SodaWorks
JA: How did Junior Achievement inspire you?

Mike Jipping: After participating in JA in high school, I’ve always considered myself entrepreneurial and have started a few small businesses prior to Beach Tribe SodaWorks. That entrepreneurial attitude has also helped me to succeed in many jobs throughout my life, providing me a think-outside-the-box mindset and discipline.

Mike Jipping
Junior Achievement of Alaska
Mike Jipping
Junior Achievement of Alaska
Mike Jipping
Founder/Soda Chef,
Beach Tribe SodaWorks
JA: How did Junior Achievement inspire you?

Mike Jipping: After participating in JA in high school, I’ve always considered myself entrepreneurial and have started a few small businesses prior to Beach Tribe SodaWorks. That entrepreneurial attitude has also helped me to succeed in many jobs throughout my life, providing me a think-outside-the-box mindset and discipline.

JA: What inspired you to start your company?

Jipping: Beach Tribe SodaWorks was a culmination of ideas that I was passionate about, good at, and also believed that I could make a living at.

I had reached a ceiling in my job and was looking for various ways—outside of the box—where I could make a business move using my strengths and continue to grow my goals and relationships. Providing refreshments to Anchorage, Alaska—and ideally the rest of the world— was something that kept coming up.

JA: Why does Alaska need entrepreneurs?

Jipping: Well…what is an entrepreneur? How about: hard-working disciplined people, who create value for their communities? Then, yes, we need more of them! I love Alaska. And I’m optimistic. And I believe that with all of our many resources, Alaskan entrepreneurs have a special opportunity to continue to grow this great state into one of the coolest places on the planet. The variety of entrepreneurship that has been developing in our unique communities is exciting and inspiring, and I’m looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labor ripen. As long as our people are pursuing value-added lifestyles, our state can look forward to moving into more leadership roles. I hope you get into it!

JA: What’s one thing that would surprise people to know about you/your company?

Jipping: I rarely drank soda and had never made craft soda before I started Beach Tribe SodaWorks.

Mary Miner
Junior Achievement of Alaska
Mary Miner
Cofounder, Atikus Investments
Incorporated (Rwanda)
JA: What inspired you to start your company?

Mary Miner: The fact that access to capital can be life changing for an individual and a family. I saw this life changing transformation take place during a gap year traveling abroad, in my post-secondary education focused on microfinance, and throughout my work at a microfinance institution in Cape Coast, Ghana.

Atikus Investments Incorporated aimed to expand access to capital for qualified yet underserved individuals, particularly women, across the developing world. It pursued this goal through the use of data, technology, and credit insurance tools developed alongside financial institutions in Rwanda.

Starting Atikus allowed me to build on my work in microfinance and pursue targeted, meaningful impact that I believed would change the financial sector for the better.

JA: Why does Alaska need entrepreneurs?

Miner: Alaska needs entrepreneurs to diversify our economy and continue the spark of innovation in our state. Alaskans deal with unique challenges every day. Located in the Arctic, with 570,641 square miles of land, Alaska is the largest state in the union. With approximately 700,000 residents, Alaska has the lowest population density of any state and roughly 86 percent of communities reside off the state’s official road system. Innovative entrepreneurs are needed to advance the state’s economic growth and development, particularly in rural off-the-road-system communities.

JA: How do you support entrepreneurship in Alaska?

Miner: As a governing board member of Launch Alaska–the state’s first entrepreneurial accelerator—I’m proud to support new entrepreneurs tackling some of our state’s most pressing challenges around energy and energy intensive businesses such as food, water, and transportation. As the VP of community development at Alaska Growth Capital—a wholly owned subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and a small business lender operating across Alaska—I’m excited to advance entrepreneurs’ access to capital in Alaska.

JA: What’s one thing that would surprise people to know about you/your company?

Miner: I am a mother of two. Being an entrepreneur is a lot like being a mom. It’s important to remember, it takes a village, both in motherhood and in building a business. No entrepreneur or parent can do everything themselves. Balancing it all is more difficult than you think, but supporting something (or someone) from the beginning is the most rewarding thing you will ever do.