A number of the nation's young people were reminded that they can do anything that they put their minds to, and all is not lost with their generation, by Dennis Deveaux, director of finance and strategic planning at Toyota Material Handling North America, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Deveaux rebuked the narrative that there's no hope for young males and that young females are not as smart as their male counterparts.
He spoke to more than 100 Junior Achievement Company members at a Future Leaders Seminar hosted by BTCs Junior Achievement Company. At the seminar, they addressed the topic of solving tomorrow's problems today.
Deveaux challenged the JA members to recognize that the potential that lies within them is great, and ultimately, they determine how successful they are to become in their own lives.
He reminded them that they are all bold and amazing beyond their wildest imaginations, and what they think of themselves will exceed what anybody else will think of them, in terms of their potential.
Using himself as an example, Deveaux, who is a product of JA, told the students of how he had to repeat first grade and of the seminal experience it was for him.
"I joked with them about how dumb you have to be to repeat grade one and how that was such a seminal moment in my life, at the age of six, and saying I really had to get my act together and really reset expectations for myself," he said.
With his less-than-stellar start to his education, Deveaux discouraged the Achievers from becoming obsessed about where they are from, or where they started in life. He encouraged them to recognize that there are fairly basic and important steps they can take, in spite of where they started in order to address the challenges they would face in their life.
He urged them to recognize the importance of the decisions they have to make in their 10th through 12th grade years, and how those decisions would affect them in terms of the pathway to success.
"No one really tells you that you should start to study for your SATs [Scholastic Aptitude Test] in grade 10 versus grade 11," he said. "That step alone is something that begins to put you on the pathway to success. No one portrays that in music videos, or reggae or rap culture. They don't tell you that getting your college application absolutely perfect is so important to taking that first step towards success."
Deveaux told the Achievers that they should be thinking about college preparation.
"If you're in grade 10, you need to have your pre-selection for your short list of colleges done -- and not in grade 11. If you're in grade 11, I expect that you would have already started to fill out applications, already drafted essays, and not waiting until grade 12. If you are already in grade 12 and have successfully done that, you've successfully gotten into college or successfully gotten into a technical school, that you then commit yourself to the next level of education or training beyond that. If you've already gotten into undergrad, you should be starting to prepare yourself for what graduate school would potentially look like and cost; or what you would want to do beyond your first level of technical training if that's the route you went into -- those are some of the practical things that you should be doing," he advised.
The Future Leaders Seminar was designed to get the Achievers realistically thinking about how to achieve their goals.
Deveaux, who was a JA member from 1998 to 1999, said he learned how business works in JA, and now he is in the finance and business sector.
Deveaux said that the Achievers should not understate the importance of that foundational education.
"JA really left me with the importance of making a plan," said the former Achiever.
"In those early days in JA, you have vice president of this and vice president of that, and you start out with a fairly simple plan of what you want to accomplish in that year. And at the end of that year there's accountability to your shareholders, because you have equity capital for what you've done. I took those same teachings and applied those today. And when I have things I have to get done, I have accountability -- ultimately to Toyota -- that nothing will get in my way; that I will get that done."
Deveaux encouraged the JA Company members to identify a goal and put it on what he called the critical path, and stop at nothing to get it done within the next 12 months.
"Find something outside of going to college... outside of the things that are on the ordinary course, and put that on your critical path and make sure that it happens, because that's what JA ultimately is challenging you to do, using the medium of business and the like," he said.
Deveaux, who returned home to speak at the seminar, said it was important for him to give back to Bahamian students.
"There are a ton of expats living abroad, and frankly we have our families, our work obligations and get caught up in the day-to-day, and - whether it's right or wrong - we really haven't identified a way to reinvest back into the community, so it was an awesome feeling that I was asked to do something like that, and given the opportunity to contribute, and happy I was able to participate," he said.
The seminar featured a number of speakers, including Leon Williams, CEO of BTC.
Barry Wilmott, executive advisor for BTC's JA Company, said they were encouraged by the level of participation in the seminar from the other Junior Achievement companies, and that they believe they achieved their goal of getting Achievers to realistically think about how to achieve their goals.
BTC has been a supporter of the JA program for over 30 years.

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