Needed: Fresh ideas

Below is an extended version of a story set for publication Wednesday.

The gist is, the job market is dreary and likely to get worse, a pretty discouraging prospect for young high school and college grads in the area.

The silver lining is a distinctly American tradition of entrepreneurship, which tends to be the nourishment that nurses hobbled economies back to life.

The Inland Empire is becoming a hotbed of sorts for entrepreneurship, most notably with the academic center dedicated to it at Cal State San Bernardino.

The movement fits in nicely with the general trend of the 21st century economy, which rewards innovation and creativity more than steadiness and stability.

Read below

By Robert Rogers

Pamela Lara is a savvy 18-year-old who knows what she wants: Economic and creative freedom.
The San Bernardino High School student plans to enroll community college after graduation.

But she has bigger dreams, namely being her own boss in the field she loves - fashion.

Lara is one of more than a dozen young women and girls in The Rose, an entrepreneurship program in downtown San Bernardino. Lara and other youths will enter the job market in its most dismal stretch of the decade.

They don’t possess niche skills, and a four-year college may not be in their future, but they may have something else.

While job contraction and jitters about the future have job-seekers on edge, entrepreneurial-focused training is en vogue.

Such programs go beyond “hard” skills like vocational training, instead prodding students to hatch ideas, think creatively and excel at “soft” skills like communication and networking.

“What we do is a bit of a mix between fashion design, self-esteem and personal development and entreprenurial ideas,” said Linda Hart, who runs The Rose program. “We really play up the fashion as a way to get them in here and instill them with the entrepreneurial spirit.”

Economic trends, especially locally, may favor flexible soft skill sets as prices rise, city coffers verge on bust and the labor pool overwhelms available jobs.

“Now is the time for young people to build their own economic infrastructure,” said Aubrey Ward, founder of AWard Studios, a Fontana-based event planning and apprentice training business. “The kids in this area see plenty of kids their age having babies and doing drugs and having a tough time finding jobs. It’s important to show them alternatives.”

Ward’s program overlaps with Hart’s, which is run with support from the county’s Department of Behavioral and Health Services. Ward visits Hart’s 20-plus girls to give marketing, fashion and networking tips.

“We have girls from different backgrounds, and this program lets them do things that interest them while teaching them the things they need to be successful.”

At the same time, more traditional training programs and vocations are suffering.

At the Inland Empire Job Corps in Muscoy, placement in jobs for graduating students has plummeted from about 95 percent to less than 75 percent, said Adan Gomez, business and community liaison.

“The construction rates are hit hardest now,” Gomez said. “Employers are dropping 40 hour jobs to 30 and 20 hours, a trend we’ve been seeing for months.”

Job Corps has responded by strengthening its culinary arts and business curriculums, Gomez said, including giving students the kinds of soft skills and broad understanding to stand apart in a tight market.

“We’ve gone from training students to chop food and prepare dishes to adding creative exercises like developing recipes, so they can be more marketable or even run their own business.”

A 2006 study by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor revealed the United States as alone among developed Western economies in having a higher business launch rates among 18-24-year-olds than 35-44-year-olds.

Matthew Pozel, a spokesman for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the nation’s biggest private entrepreneurship, said investment in youthful ideas should peak in times of economic downturn.

“The economy is going to be renewed by new ideas,” Pozel said. “There are some programs out there trying to prepare people for an economy that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Entrepreneurship isn’t just an American tradition, it has a strong recent track record as well.
Bill Gates, after all, started Microsoft at age 19. And the Silicon Valley exploded as a tech hub largely due to creative entrepreneurship.

Michael Stull, director of the Center of Entrepreneurship at Cal State San Bernardino, said the economic downturn is just the type of scenario in which the bold, innovative spirits not only thrive, but turn fortunes around for larger economies.

“Creative destruction is at the heart of entrepreneurship,” he said. “The reality is that long-term growth and generating of jobs is going to come from small to medium companies as opposed to larger ones. Our grads will create the businesses, employ the people, and grow the economy.”

Stull’s program, like the smaller ones run by Ward and Hart, has thrived, swelling from just 17 students in 2001 to more than 250 grad and undergrad students today. Programs like his have flourished at colleges nationwide and in the Cal State system, Stull said.

“Younger generations, more so than prior generations, view entrepreneurship as a viable path,” he said.
“In tough, competitive job markets, this idea of being their own boss is enticing and holds a lot of promise.”