🍎 Alissa Couthen, Real World's most recent speaker for the Senior AP Government Class (Bear Valley Unified School District), shared her path from High School to where she is now, in her current position with Monigle, a branding Company located in Denver, Colorado. Alissa moved to Big Bear from Santa Monica and now works remotely most of the time, but does enjoy traveling to meet her clients in person. She presented a very informative slide show, explaining to the students about "branding" and helping them to understand all it includes. She shared many ideas and these are some of the take aways: 🔹 Your Education is a start to your path. About salary and what the job entails. 🔹 When ready for a job, reach out to companies you might be interested in to see if they have any openings. 🔹 Don't be afraid to talk about salary and what the job entails. 🔹 Suggested to students to join LinkedIn now. Making connections is a powerful tool. 🔹 Most important; NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOURSELF! The students had some very interesting questions for Alissa during and after her talk. It was a very informative and successful time for the students. 👏 Thank you, Alissa, for sharing your time and wisdom with our class! #RealWorld #GuestSpeaker #StudentSuccess #CareerReady #Branding101 #Monigle #LinkedInTips #HighSchoolToCareer #NeverUnderestimateYourself #APGovernment #BigBearSchools (fb)

🌍 Real World Guest Speaker – Leslie Urban 🌿✨ On Wednesday, March 19, David Courtney’s Senior Honors Government/Econ (Bear Valley Unified School District) students were shown another excellent example of the different and interesting paths that professional people can take to get to their current vocations. Even though she is the owner of High Trails Outdoor Science School , Leslie Urban’s first words after being introduced were that she has absolutely no business background or business education. Leslie went on to briefly talk about her journey to Big Bear. She graduated from a very large high school in Chicago and didn’t really have a plan for after high school. At this point in her journey, she emphasized that she wanted to be in a situation (either a job or schooling) that provided free housing as a way to save money. She started by joining the Coast Guard ⚓, then leaving after boot camp. She ended up in the “middle of nowhere Colorado” at a dude ranch 🏇 for a while (again free housing!). After the dude ranch, she decided to go to college. She had done crewing in high school, and because of Title IX, there were a lot of opportunities for athletic scholarships for women. She went to Oregon State 🏫 on crewing and academic scholarships all four years (and free housing! 🏡), graduating with a degree in Geography 🗺️. She loved science and being outdoors, and geography seemed like a good fit. She went to work in GIS (Geographic Information Systems), which seemed ideal, but she sat inside in a cubicle 40 hours/week and hated it. ⏩ Fast forward to 2013, when she discovered Big Bear and High Trails. She signed a one-year contract (with free housing again! 🏕️) and got to be outside, work with children, and live in a beautiful place. High Trails, which is a local small business that offers outdoor science activities in a camp setting for mostly 5th and 6th graders, was owned by Driz Cook. It follows a very unique business model. Leslie continued to sign 1-year contracts and applied for different positions over the years. There were two sites, and she eventually became a site director at one of them. As a site director, she discovered she had good leadership skills and was very good at logistics (“love a good spreadsheet!” 📊) she said. She learned to do all kinds of things to support the school over the years, including plumbing, fixing mechanical things, writing and carrying out lesson plans, and more. Part of the reason for this is that everything that needs to be done is done in-house by staff members, and they use no outside contractors. In 2019, Driz, who had owned High Trails for nearly 20 years, was looking to retire. He asked Leslie if she was interested in running the company. When COVID hit in 2020, the school had to shut down for about 18 months. With very low overhead, the school was able to survive the shutdown. Driz then asked if she wanted to buy High Trails, which she did. He still owns a very small percentage of the company and acts as a silent partner/consultant to her. ✨ Once again, the students were very engaged in her presentation and asked many insightful questions. They were very interested in the business model of the company, how they could become staff members when they turn 21, and what kinds of skills they would need to do that. It was clear that she loves what she is doing as the owner of this unique, niche business. The Ed Trust thanks Leslie Urban for her time and her very enthusiastic Real World presentation! 👏🌿🏕️ #RealWorldLearning #BigBearValley #EducationMatters #OutdoorEducation #FutureLeaders #HighTrails #BBVEducationTrust #CareerPaths #LifelongLearning #Inspiration #Leadership #ScienceEducation #HandsOnLearning (fb)