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Suggestions fly fast from students at the 10th Annual Youth Entrepreneur Seminar presented by the Missoula SCORE chapter

"At high school football games, do you have programs?" asked Alex Gallego, owner of Missoula Bicycle Works.

About 120 high school students, who had gathered in a conference room at Best Inn on Brooks Street on Friday for a daylong business seminar, responded with a chorus of yeses.

By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/11/06/news/local/news07.txt

Gallego was one of several speakers who told tales of their early entrepreneurial days and the struggles to stay afloat. After his talk, he posed a question to the students: How could he market his business more effectively?

The students, who came from high schools as far away as Darby, Drummond and Polson, responded enthusiastically. Gallego kept saying, "Wait, wait, let me write that down." Then he’d pause for a moment over the podium to scribble onto a notepad.

The seminar was sponsored by SCORE http://www.missoulascore.org/ , an 11,500-member volunteer association sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The organization offers business counseling and other services to prospective and established small business owners and managers.

Prospective business owners were the focus Friday.

At one table sat 17-year-old Rick Bohlman of Big Sky High School. He liked the description of real-life problems that Gallego gave. He hopes to own his own plumbing or automotive business someday.

Many of the students had solid plans to be their own boss someday. Sentinel students Taylor Montgomery, 17, and Amanda Nelson, 18, want to own an independent bookstore and a fashion line, respectively. Seated next to them were Laura Huffman and Ashley McLean, both 16 and students at Big Sky. They were less sure of their life plans.

"I don’t know. I’m glad to be here because I’m getting more information on how hard it is to own my own business," Huffman said.

Another table with students from Victor has already dabbled in the entrepreneurial arts. Mark Frye, 15, and Matt Wildey, 17, run an ice cream concern called Ice Age Ice Cream as part of their business class at school.

"We’re very reasonably priced. The ice cream has been selling well to little kids," Frye said.

Frye said it has been cool to see older kids become customers and the revenue stream swell. Still, he’s not entirely sure what he’ll do after high school, he said.

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SCORE thanks the following presenters who made the event a success:

SHIELA CALAGHAN – KMSO RADIO http://kmso.com/

ERIC MAUER – RE-COMPUTE COMPUTERS (406) 543-8287

ALEX GALLEGO – MISSOULA BICYCLE WORKS http://www.missoulabicycleworks.com/

SCOTT BILIDEAU – LIQUID PLANET http://www.liquidplanet.us/

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One of the volunteers, Russ Fletcher of the Montana Associated Technology Roundtable, enjoyed watching the students interact with the speakers. The enthusiasm of the students was infectious.

"There’s incredible potential in these students, and their comments are worth about $10,000 in marketing research," he said.

Sure enough, Gallego kept asking the students for a moment so he could keep up with his notes. The advice came thick and fast.

"They have great ideas. One big thing they suggested is to have advertising be more community involved. I didn’t expect to hear that," he said.

The students were just as enthusiastic. One young woman searched out Gallego after the end of his talk to give him more advice.

A few minutes later, the students had begun to light into Scott Bilideau, a co-owner of Liquid Planet. He had asked them how to bring more Missoula shoppers downtown.

Some had ideas about attracting more customers – keep businesses open later, give kids something to do and advertise the benefits of the parking garage – and others suggested following the customers.

"Maybe if the mall is so popular, get a space at the mall," one student said.

Bilideau nodded and smiled.

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