Pacifica Stories

The Minchin Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship seeks to challenge bright and motivated students to become entrepreneurial innovative leaders. Through targeted classes, our Insight speaker series, and a service partnership with This Little Light Africa, we are developing future change makers who are bold and courageous in their desire to impact the world for the better. 

Minchin Center Core Values

Taking Risks - Accepting risk invites opportunities for personal growth yet always involves the possibility of failure. Courage and confidence rise every time we step out, regardless of the outcome. To mature, students must reject passivity and stretch themselves, even when it feels uncomfortable. When they are thoughtful and wise about the risks they take, growth accelerates.

Responsiveness - In our ever-changing and frenetic world, one cannot simply stand quietly on the sidelines. Every day presents new opportunities. We must train our attention and be ready to engage decisively. Leaders set themselves apart and are most effective when they demonstrate responsiveness, intentionality, and a bias toward action.

Problem-Solving - Every journey involves unexpected obstacles and detours. Solutions can sometimes seem elusive. Students must learn to engage their imaginations, master flexibility, insightfully weigh options, and pivot quickly when necessary to innovate and succeed. Creative problem-solving skills are essential to navigating a life where the path is rarely linear.

Community - We are interdependent beings, designed to live and thrive in community. Real success can only be found when we use our ideas and gifts to build a better existence for all. Students must cultivate many qualities to do this well, beginning with empathy, generosity, and humility. To affect true change, leaders must be willing to share power and welcome diversity of thought.

Perseverance - In a culture that quits things quickly, possessing the grit to push through obstacles and persevere builds resilience and effectiveness in leaders—helping to refine and enact a vision for life. When students resist the urge to run from difficulty and instead remain steadfast and loyal in the face of it, their character is forged and strengthened for future challenges and endeavors.

Ambition - Ambition is the natural vehicle for turning talent and gifts into achievement. It’s necessary for reaching one’s full potential. Students must develop ambition, but not for its own sake or solely for personal gain. When coupled with calling and rooted in servant leadership, this personal drive results in a purpose-filled life that can be world-changing.

Entrepreneurship Course Offerings

The Minchin Center oversees two courses in business and economics: AP Economics and Economics and Entrepreneurship. The AP class covers microeconomics in the Fall Semester and macroeconomics in the Spring. Students are currently deep in the weeds of cost curves and production decisions as they develop into young business people and economists. After the new year coursework turns to macroeconomics and questions of fiscal and monetary policy, spending a fair amount of time with current events like Federal Reserve policy and (threatened) government shutdowns.

In the Fall, Economics and Entrepreneurship focuses on the basics of free market economics, assumptions of the rational actor, and the failures of the market system and how to address them. Students just finished Unit 2: Rational Man and have started Unit 3: Market Failures. In this unit students are required to identify a problem within our free-market system and develop solutions that include both regulatory and market mechanisms. Social media, ocean pollution, traffic—there are no shortage of problems to solve! In the second semester students will take those problem-solving skills and develop a personal business philosophy, business plan and develop a product idea, Ala ‘Shark Tank’!, to present to their classmates and a panel of “celebrity” judges.

Service Partnership 

Students who are actively involved in the Minchin Center explore service leadership through our partnership with This Little Light Africa. TLLA is a nonprofit that “partners with and supports organizations and individuals in Nigeria and throughout Africa to empower their fellow Africans, improve their communities, and better the world around them”. Monty Minchin, the son of the Center’s founder Mike Minchin, serves as the current president, and helps facilitate the relationship between this organization and Pacifica. Students work to raise funds for TTLA through student-led fundraising efforts throughout the year. We value forming leaders who prioritize service and use their innovative ideas to help those in need. 

The Minchin Center is off to a great start this year as we seek to develop young innovators and entrepreneurs! For more details contact John Reimers, Director of the Minchin Center.