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End of Line for New Haven JA?
Local Junior Achievement may be merged into Hartford operation
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Business New Haven
3/6/2000
By: Fiona Phelan
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The Hartford-based office of Junior Achievement is currently in negotiations with the Junior Achievement office that serves greater New Haven to consolidate the two facilities.
Although still in the exploratory stage, David Eustis Jr., president of the Hartford-based Junior Achievement of North Central Connecticut, says that he anticipates a final agreement between the two offices to be reached within the next 90 days.
According to Eustis, when former Southern Connecticut JA president Roger O'Brien left in November, the Southern Connecticut JA board initiated discussions regarding consolidation rather than seeking a new president.
Last year, Junior Achievement of Southern Connecticut provided business and economic programs to approximately 1,600 students in kindergarten through 12th grade (the Wallingford-based chapter serves both greater New Haven and the New London area). By comparison, the Hartford-based office provided programs for more than 26,000 students.
Additionally, the Hartford office has a staff of eight full-time and one part-time employees, while the Southern Connecticut office is operates with just one employee.
“The Southern Connecticut area has struggled in the past and we think we will be able to impact more students by consolidating under one office,” says Eustis. He notes that the Hartford area group operates with a $1 million endowment fund from sources such as United Technologies and Fleet/Boston. The New Haven area, he adds, has no such endowment and therefore cannot provide services for as many students.
JA of Southern Connecticut Board Chair Marie O'Neill stressed that any discussions are in the preliminary stages and consolidation with the Hartford office is just one option that is being considered as part of the chapter's long-range strategic plan.
However, according to Eustis, a for-sale sign has already been erected outside the JA office building at 316 Woodhouse Avenue in Wallingford. Junior Achievement offices in other parts of the country have also consolidated recently, says Eustis, noting Tucson and Phoenix, Ariz. as examples.
Junior Achievement has 171 offices nationwide serving 20,000 communities. JA programs reach nearly 3.5 million U.S. students each year. There are also JA offices in 97 foreign countries.
Using volunteers from the business community, JA empowers young people and teaches them essential lessons about building careers and valuing free enterprise. JA bills itself as the world's largest and fastest-growing non-profit economic education organization.
Theodore Vail, president of American Telephone & Telegraph, Horace Moses, president of Strathmore Paper Co. and U.S. Sen. Murray Crane of Massachusetts founded Junior Achievement in 1919.
JA's alumni include Dan Rather; U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, Subway co-founder and CEO Frederick A. Deluca, Thomas S. Monaghan, president and CEO of Domino's Pizza, and Marshall Loeb, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, to name a few.
According to Eustis, the demand for JA volunteers to teach in area schools far outweighs the supply.
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