Mr. Cummings was a student at Sir Robert Borden High School in Ottawa, eager to learn about business but not really sure of where to start.
So he remembers feeling excited when JA representatives stepped through the door of his classroom and showed Mr. Cummings and fellow students how boards of directors are elected, how companies operate and also how to manage your own self in a business.
"The thing that I remember most from it – and I really was impressed by it – was the formality of a board meeting," said Mr. Cummings, now the chief executive of trade-show firm Skyline.
"Calling the meeting to order, and taking minutes, and having to make motions and seconding the motions, and forwarding on the motions -- it really impressed me. I thought, 'You know, this is something I want to do.' "
On Tuesday, JA Ottawa – which has added a charter, gone out of business and returned in the span of a generation – announced it would expand its programs to reach at least two per cent of elementary and high school classrooms, up from the current one per cent.
JA is a national organization; in Ottawa, its services are delivered through a fusion of the national branch and OCRI's Entrepreneurship Centre. Funding partners include Accenture, Algonquin College, RBC Foundation and an anonymous donor.
"There's a good likelihood that kids going through the system today will go their entire academic careers without learning about entrepreneurs and small business," said Stephen Daze, OCRI's executive director of entrepreneurship, innovation and research.
"That which does exist is geared towards an older model of large industry, and what we need is kids thinking about innovation and creative problem-solving now rather than later.
"To use a hockey analogy, we just don't expect 25 or 35-year-olds to become professional hockey players and get gold medals without having had a whole lifetime's worth of training, experience and development."
JA Ottawa's new venture is called the Building Basics Program, targeted at students between Grades 3 and 6. It begins in the lower grades by telling kids about small business and the concepts of free enterprise, gradually teaching them how to use these skills on their own.
The entrepreneurship program will also continue offering JA Titan, which is an online business simulation that teaches high-school students about producing a product, setting prices and then competing with other students in the marketplace as they try to generate sales.
"The reason why we like this a lot is the game is fun and exciting. It's competitive and the kids are learning as they play, " Mr. Daze said.
"The teachers like it because regardless of the age or grade level or class, the teacher can pull out some really good learning."
In total, 8,500 students – 3,500 in elementary school, and 5,000 in high school – will have the volunteer-driven program appear in their classrooms this coming year.
Even if the students don't go on to be entrepreneurs, teachable skills arising from JA include problem-solving, communication, team-building, using limited resources, dealing with customers and solving problems, Mr. Daze said.
In Mr. Cummings' case, he went on to study music after university, and joined Yamaha Canada as a keyboard specialist in the 1980s.
"I stayed there for three years, and I treated it as an MBA. I learned how channels work, how distribution works. They were a manufacturer-distributor, so I got to know all the dealers and I understood the dynamic."
From there, he established Skyline and still has a hand in his business some 20 years later. Last year, Cummings became a serial entrepreneur when he opened Clearly Solar, to take advantage of the burgeoning clean-energy market.
Cummings now gives financial support to JA because he is so grateful of the opportunities it offered him.
"If JA inspires one kid to pursue a career as an entrepreneur, I think it’s a wonderful thing," Mr. Cummings said.
"Who knows; I may have pursued a career there anyway. But it was part of my learning process, and that experience was very helpful. It encouraged me to go out and take the risks and become an entrepreneur."
