Junior Achievement of North Florida announced Aug. 2 that President and CEO Steve St. Amand is retiring after 20 years of service.
He will leave the position Dec. 31, his 70th birhday and nearly 20 years to the day after he joined the organization.
St. Amand will be honored for his service with an induction into the Junior Achievement of North Florida Hall of Fame, according to a news release from the organization.
St. Amand has overseen 26 counties in Florida since Jan. 1, 2001. During his tenure, JA of North Florida’s program reach grew from 6,841 students in 2001 to 62,355 students in the 2018-19 school year and 48,100 students in the most recent school year when classroom education was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the release.
Over St. Amand’s 20 years of service, 601,193 students from kindergarten to 12th grade in North Florida participated in Junior Achievement financial literacy, workforce readiness and entrepreneurship programs, it said.
“Twenty years ago, I learned that Junior Achievement was about children, education and free enterprise. It hooked me then and has sustained me for two decades,” St. Amand said in the release.
“The staff who have worked at Junior Achievement of North Florida, the 300 business people who over the years have served on the board of directors, and the companies, foundations and individuals who have supported JA were really the ones who made this a successful organization,” he said.
St. Amand said he is most proud of the local initiatives he created that used JA programs to meet community needs.
JA Girl$ was created 12 years ago to bring programs to girls and young women in areas where women were the only caretaker in the family.
JA Boy$, its partner program, was created a few years later. JA Girl$ has been replicated throughout the country and in four foreign countries. It also won the Met Life Foundation for Entrepreneurial Excellence award.
JA Work$ is another initiative created by St. Amand and his staff to provide high school seniors Junior Achievement workforce readiness programs and activities.
Selected students are given work experience and are paid a stipend for successful completion. The JA Financial Literacy Center created in 2015 houses The Economics of Healthy Eating, a program developed by JA of North Florida in partnership with the University of North Florida’s Brooks College of Health.
This year, JA of North Florida will introduce a Black & Minority Initiative that will specifically meet the needs of black and minority students by providing access to financial resources, exposure to minority-owned businesses and mentors and financial literacy education.
Junior Achievement of North Florida has been operating in Jacksonville since 1963 and has a satellite office in Tallahassee. Through partnership between the business community, educators and volunteers, Junior Achievement of North Florida helps young people connect with relevant learning and understand the importance of staying in school.
Its website is Visit janfl.org.