Leaders Across America With Steve Acorn

What drives a college student to break records and lead a six-figure business before graduation? In this episode of the Leaders Across America podcast, Steve Acorn speaks with Ashton Benkert, a junior at Adrian College who shattered Michigan's rookie production record by running a $180,000 business in his first year with the Young Entrepreneurs Across America (YEAA) program.   Ashton shares how hi...

What does it take to start, grow, and sell a successful business? In this episode of the Leaders Across America podcast, host Steve Acorn welcomes back Andrew Dennison, an alumnus of the Young Entrepreneurs Across America program and now the CEO of Basepath. Andrew shares his incredible journey from running his first business as a student branch manager to co-founding a groundbreaking software com...

What does it take to excel as a young entrepreneur and leader? On this episode of Leaders Across America, host Steve Acorn speaks with Griffin Workman, a standout participant in the Young Entrepreneurs Across America program. Griffin takes us through his transformative journey from a rookie painter to running a $150,000 business and earning $30,000 in profit—all while balancing the challenges of l...

How does a student-athlete balance rigorous commitments while running a six-figure business? In this episode of Leaders Across America, Steve Acorn sits down with Emma LaVelle, a trailblazing participant in the Young Entrepreneurs Across America program. Emma shares her inspiring journey of managing a $120,000 business while excelling as a full-time student athlete and figure skater. Her story sho...

How do you go from zero business experience to smashing state records in just a few summers? In this episode of Leaders Across America, Steve Acorn talks with Adam Pompilius, a standout in the Young Entrepreneurs Across America program and Michigan's all-time sales leader.    Adam shares his journey of becoming Rookie Manager of the Year, managing over $230,000 in sales during a single summer, and...

On today's show, we interview Ashland Stansbury, one of our successful alumni who was part of the Young Entrepreneurs Program back in 2015. She was a freshman at Babson College when she joined our program and she sold over $165,000 that summer, winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award. Today, Ashland is the CEO of Because, a B2B software platform that she founded four years ago upon graduation....

On today's show, we interview Joe Tedesco, one of our successful alumni who joined our program back in 2016 and completed an $81,000 business with a profit of $15,000.    What is unique about Joe's story is that he was the very last intern hired that year (it was early to mid-April) and he had to figure out very quickly how to get started in this business. But he had a very strong mindset that hel...

On today's show, we interview Ben Steenkamp from the University of Connecticut. He was one of our successful branch managers back in 2017 and 2018 running a $75,000 business and making about  $16,000 in his first year in our program and about $25,000 in his second year. Today, Ben works as an account executive at Oracle NetSuite.   In this episode, Ben is going to talk about the importance and the...

On today's show, we interview Michael Acorn, one of our successful interns. Since joining our program in 2019, he sold over $1.8 million and earn personally over 160,000, he has recruited, coached, and mentored 18 college students who've earned an average of 22,000 hours a summer. He is also the number one branch manager of all time with single sales of $366,000 over three summers.    In this epis...

On today's show, we interview AJ Rodriguez, another one of our successful alumni. He was an intern with us back in 2012 and did a $70,000 plus business.   After finishing school, AJ entered his family business. Today he owns 34 Sport Clips Haircuts locations, 1 Gigi's Cupcakes Bakery, Beyond Parallel Fitness 24/7 & CrossFit gym, and is a landlord/property manager for real estate investment propert...

On today's show, we interview another one of our amazing recent alumni. His name is Mike Morrill, he was an intern with us for three years, from 2019 to 2022 and sold over $1.5 million during this period.   Mike not only ran his own business successfully but also coached many interns and watched them grow with our program, both professionally and financially.   In this episode, Mike is going to ta...

On today's show, we interview Tyler Wagner, one of our alumni who was a branch manager down in Columbia, South Carolina back in 2012.   Today, Tyler lives in Miami and has started a few companies, one of the main ones being Authors Unite, a company that focuses on publishing books for people that currently has about $15 million a year in sales.    In this episode, Tyler is going to talk about some...

It is the 100th episode of the Leaders Across America podcast and we wanted it to be something really unique and special. So this time, Steve Acorn is going to turn the microphone around and will tell his own story and his experience with Young Entrepreneurs Across America. Steve is going to be interviewed by Chris Thomson, the Head Coach of the Student Work Management Program, a similar organizat...

In today's show, Steve interviews  Cate Latting , Executive Regional Manager at Young Entrepreneurs Across America .   This show starts with Cate sharing how she got involved with YEAA in the first place. Outgoing and athletic, Cate got a chance to co-op in her sophomore year. In this segment of the show, Cate talks a bit about the mental hurdles that she had to overcome when she first got involve...

On today's show, we interview Miles Drum, a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, who has completed his first year of the YEAA program and set an all-time business record in selling over $226,000 and profiting over $60,000 this past summer.   In this episode, Miles is going to share with you what he had to do to become number one of all time, his real-life experiences with YEAA  as a fresh...

On today's special show, we interview Alexa Moore, one of our successful alumni.     Alexa was a branch manager at YEAA between 2015-2016 and she did over $ 100,000 in business with about $ 22,000 in profits. She developed as a top performer in sales, recruiting, interviewing, marketing, management and leadership. In 2017 she was promoted to General Manager of the Michigan and New England Division...

On today's special show, we interview Jacob Melvin, a finance student at Michigan State University who has just completed year one of the YEAA program.   Running a $177,000 business this past summer, and earning over $30,000 in income, Jacob managed to break the all-time rookie record for sales along with the all-time Michigan sales record for a branch manager.    In this episode, he is going to t...

On today's special show, we interview Chris Goldman, one of our successful alumni.     Chris was a branch manager in Spartanburg, South Carolina for two years, 2016 and 2017 and won the Manager of the Year each time.    Today Chris is the owner of Dahlia Homes, a real estate investment company, specializing in property management, acquisitions and construction management in South Carolina.   In th...

On today's special show, we interview Eric Emerick one of our successful alumni who ran a $100,000 plus business back in 2013-2014. What is unique about him is the path he chose after leaving our program and graduating from  Purdue University in 2017: he moved to New York where he went to an acting school to perfect his acting skills.   Today he is an actor, a model, a sailing instructor, and also...

On today's special show, we interview Xavier Cole, one of our alumni, a graduate of UConn, who is today a visionary real estate consultant with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Commonwealth Real Estate.   He was a branch manager in our program in 2020 and he believes that this experience had a huge impact on his professional life and set the foundation for who he is today.    He is also the host o...

On today's special show, we interview Joe Delia, Operating Principal at Keller Williams Paint Creek, and owner of the Delia Group. He is also one of our alumni and he talked about his experience with Student Painters in a previous episode.   This time we invited Joe to talk about what students need to do in order to be able to apply to elite companies like Keller Williams after college   With more...

In today's episode of the Leader Across America podcast, Steve sits down with Aaron Acorn and Josh Drushel, both Vice Presidents of the Young Entrepreneurs Across America program for the final episode of their special four-part series. The topic for today's show involves the benefits students can gain by being part of the Young Entrepreneurs Across America program.   As the summer winds down and w...

On today's special show, we interview Joey Szczepaniak a former intern of ours who had excellent results in our internship program back in 2016. He stayed with us only for one year, but he believes that year had a major impact on his life, both professionally and personally.    Since he left YEAA he had an amazing story filled with great opportunities and he thinks that his experience in our progr...

On today's special show, we interview Patrick Gorman, a second year branch manager and a rookie executive with Young Entrepreneurs Across America, who produced  over $90,000 in business and profit exceeding $28,000 during his first year in our program.   Patrick will dive deep into his s rookie year keys to success, month by month as well as he three most important things he enjoyed the most in hi...

On today's special show, we interview two of our succesful rookie entrepreneurs, Nick Draginoff and Dylan Klocker, to capture a little bit about their story so far since joining Young Entrepreneurs. Nick is a sophomore at Miami University, Ohio, and so far he has about $55,000 in sales and 45 estimates completed. Dylan is a sophomore at UMass Amherst, and he has about 130,000 in sales, 53 estimate...