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On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with Chris LaTurno, President & CEO of Junior Achievement of Dallas, to explore how the organization has been preparing students for success since 1954. Chris explains how JA’s hands-on model combines classroom curriculum with immersive simulation experiences like BizTown and Finance Park, giving students practical lessons in business economics and personal finance....
Show Notes
Financial literacy and career readiness aren’t just buzzwords—they’re essential life skills. With consumer debt at record highs and many Americans unprepared for financial emergencies, the need to equip students early has never been greater.
In this episode, Jeff Crilley sits down with Chris LaTurno, President & CEO of Junior Achievement of Dallas. Since 1954, JA Dallas has been inspiring and preparing young people to succeed in a global economy through hands-on programs in financial literacy, workforce readiness, and entrepreneurship.
In this conversation, you’ll learn:
• How JA’s BizTown and Finance Park simulations give students real-world money and business experience
• Why teaching personal finance in middle school can change a child’s future
• The role of 3,000+ corporate volunteers in mentoring and investing in local students
• How the Dallas Business Hall of Fame raises over $1 million annually to fund student success
• How JA’s BizTown and Finance Park simulations give students real-world money and business experience
• Why teaching personal finance in middle school can change a child’s future
• The role of 3,000+ corporate volunteers in mentoring and investing in local students
• How the Dallas Business Hall of Fame raises over $1 million annually to fund student success
Learn more about Junior Achievement of Dallas at: https://jadallas.org
Creators and Guests
What is The Jeff Crilley Show?
Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.
Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.
These are those stories.
Coming up next on The Jeff Crilley Show, you're gonna meet the great Chris LaTurno. He is the president of Junior Achievement of Dallas. They've been proudly serving our community since 1954. His incredible journey just ahead. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas News, I'm Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company, and we now have over a 100 clients. And we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team, and the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is The Jeff Crilley Show. Well, we're in Dallas Fort Worth, so there's a a nonprofit on every street corner. But if you think about, like, nonprofits that have stayed the course for many many years, I think about Junior Achievement of Dallas because they they went online in 1954. I mean, that's Yeah. Seventy plus years. Incredible. Chris LaTurno is the new president. He's been there for two years. Thanks for coming on the show. Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Really do, Jeff. And I'm everybody's heard of Junior Achievement, but I I have to believe that you're still at events where somebody says, oh, Junior Achievement. What do they do? So give us a one zero one. Yeah. Well, you know, we exist to, take learning to becoming, for, k through 12 students and that involved in that is financial literacy, workforce readiness, entrepreneurship. Yes. And you were telling me just before the show one of your favorite success stories. Yeah. You know, one of the things that we do is we provide, kids classroom experiences. So we provide curriculum to schools, to teachers who teach in the classroom. They teach that in the classroom for about six to seven weeks, and then they come to a simulation center, a discovery center that we have and basically think of a small town in a space. And so when they come to that space, they're there for four or five hours, and they get to operate in a bank or car dealerships or things like that. So we had a kid show up, and, he didn't really wanna I don't think he really wanna be there that badly. And and, by the end of the day, I was out by the bus when they went to leave. And as he's leaving, I kinda give him a high five, and, he's getting on the bus. He says, Mr. LaTurno, that was the best day of school I've had all year. So that's what makes a big difference. Wow. That's lot of fun. That's powerful. We're gonna pull up your website and as we scroll down the website, who is a good candidate for Junior Achievement? What's an ideal client or student, if you will? Yeah. Well, what we're doing now at Junior Achievement of Dallas is we're really working with districts on an absolute district level. And so what we're looking to do is to have every fifth grader will go through something like BizTown, which is business economics. Every seventh grader will go through Finance Park, is personal finance. And so by the time they go through a JA in a day, which is elementary school where we go into the classroom, volunteers go into the classroom, we'll do that, k through four. Fourth to fifth grade, they'll do BizTown by classroom learning then coming to a simulation center. And then as well, when they're in seventh or eighth grade, they'll go through Finance Park, which the teacher teaches, and then they will then go to a simulation center. So by the time they get to eighth grade, what we're really excited about is they've learned business economics. They've also learned personal finance. And with the way we're going today in the world with finances and personal finance credit card debt savings, that would be a big improvement. Yeah. Well, let's talk more about why it's so important to introduce that at an early age. Well, I mean, the numbers don't lie. You know, right now, we are, we have more debt than we've ever had, as consumers. We have the largest credit card debt. We have about half of Americans saving, the other half are not. And those who are saving are saving about four to 5%. So if something comes up, you know, if there's an emergency or there's a bill that needs to be paid, if there's no savings, then we're not getting that taken care of. So we want kids to understand that responsibility. Not only are they going to be exposed to industry, but they're gonna be exposed to whether you go to a four year degree, whether you go to a trade, or whether you do, you're gonna earn money. And we need to understand how to budget that, save, invest, things like that. Yes. Okay. We're gonna show a video here in a second, but I want you to set this up because, you you, just before the show, sent this to us. So what are we about to see? Well, our biggest fundraiser of the year is the Dallas Business Hall of Fame, and we been inducting people into that since 1999. And Clark Hunts of the world and Jim Keyes and Tom Leppard, a lot of other great people. And this year, we're going to be inducting into the Hall of Fame Alan Nye, Steven Williams, Susan Adzek, Philip Huffines, and they will go into the Hall of Fame. So we have a Hall of Fame event. We announce our student of the year for a $15,000 scholarship for that student to go to their first year of college. But that event will be at Downtown Omni. Two years ago, we had a $700,000 event. Last year, we raised that to 1.25. And not this Saturday, but the next Saturday, when we have that event, we're looking to raise north of $1,250,000. Amazing. And this video we're about to show is from last year? From last year. Awesome. Let's go ahead and roll that. Welcome to the twenty twenty five Junior Achievement Dallas Business Hall of Fame. Let's give it up. To honor those who have consistently demonstrated deep commitment to the leaders of tomorrow. Every dollar raised tonight will help junior achievement reach even more scholars and set up student success. We get to add the new laureates into the hall of fame. We bring volunteers just like you good people into schools across North Texas. We must prepare young people here in our own community. The next great engineer, senator, or CEO just might be at my school right now because you are making a difference this evening. I've been talking to Mark Cuban, and here's what Mark said. You raise a million dollars, and I'll give you $250,000 more to get us to that goal. I see one over here. Yes. Paddles up. $1,000. Yes, ma'am. And $5,000. 6. Would it go seven? $11.05. $11.05. Should she win again? We have raised for the first time ever a junior team of Dallas at the Business Hall Of Fame, $1,000,000. Alright. And throw in the two fifty for Mark Cuban. $1,250,000 tonight. Give yourself a big round of applause, and we thank you very much. Alright. What did that feel like? It's a lot of fun to watch it. It's a lot of fun. I think whenever you're doing something that impacts people, in their futures, then that's a lot of fun. And you spent a lifetime outside of the nonprofit arena. Tell us about that journey. Well, it's really a god story. Really, you know, I think I was a banker for thirteen years, and my wife, we were talking earlier, gonna be celebrating twenty seven years of marriage here next week and just had my best year of banking. And we were out to dinner one night, and she said, Christian, I think maybe you should think about or pray about maybe something different than being a banker. And I just had my best year, and I thought that didn't make any sense. I'm not for sure exactly what I am, but started praying about that. And about two years later, excuse me, about two weeks later, the board that I was sitting on, which was Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation or JDRF, which fights against type one diabetes. I was on that board, and the executive director resigned. And two, three weeks later, the job came up. I've got got an application in on it. I've been in nonprofit space now for eleven years. Years. And so I've just been really blessed, but really a god story. No. And and you married up. I married up big time. Married up big time. That's right. No doubt. We have about two minutes left. So final thoughts, what would you like to leave people with? Well, you know, I think nonprofits are pretty similar to banking. Right? But what I do think about this, I I really want people to know that we are, there's two things that we do in junior achievement of Dallas that we're really emphatic about. One is we like to dream big and go big. So we're gonna try to set robust goals, and we're really gonna try to make a big impact on students lives, K through 12 here in Dallas area. And then others we want to encourage and take care of each other as a staff and as a board and as donors and volunteers. And then we're always in the need of volunteers. You know, last year we had about 3,000 corporate volunteers and so as much as we're providing curriculum to the school districts, what we are doing is we are then those are those are corporate sponsors going in there. So think of that last year, 3,000 corporate sponsors going in to invest in kids. So you get the curriculum, which is phenomenal. You get the volunteer, which is amazing, and then you get the simulation of actually being in a small town to understand how your finances work, whether it's business or personal. So we're here to make as big an impact as we can. Well, I'm so glad you found your calling. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. We're gonna end with his website, which is jadallas.org, the great Chris LaTurno. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate That's it for now. We'll see you next time. I think we're good. Long pause. Dramatic pause. I think it was a great show. I mean, how did Thank you you. I feel great. Thank you. We really you were very comfortable with this. Yeah. Okay. We're just having a conversation. Yeah. Got these big cameras over here. Alright. Let's visit for a couple minutes before you have it together. Sounds good. I wish I