The Minchin Center

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
– Frederick Buechner

From truth to innovation. The Minchin Center for Innovation challenges bright and motivated students to become entrepreneurial innovative leaders for the 21st century. Students are encouraged to creatively solve complex problems, take initiative, develop a broad vision for the future, embrace risk, and aspire to make an impact on society and culture. As we engage in the business of the Minchin Center our goal is for our students and faculty to traffic in values that will enhance their lives and the lives of those around them. We seek to lead those around us, take risks to grow, respond and attend to our world, learn to solve complex problems, work together in community, persevere, and have proper ambition. If these things animate us we will be on the road to thinking and living well.

Program Offerings

Academic Courses

AP Economics 
This two semester course prepares students for the AP examinations in Micro and Macro economics, covering the basics of classical free-market mechanisms and modern Keynesian assumptions. In 2024 Minchin Center students took 12 AP Exams in Economics, earning passing scores on 11 and averaging 4.1 on a 5 point scale, compared to a national average of 3.2.

Economics and Entrepreneurship
This course explores the entrepreneurial mindset and focuses on helping students develop an actual business plan which they get to present Shark Tank-style! Local entrepreneurs also drop in to share their experiences in building and running their businesses. In our first semester, students kicked off the year by brainstorming everything from the value proposition to the product mix to the physical layout of our first student store, The Wolf Shack.

The Wolf Shack

Students from the Economics and Entrepreneurship class and the Young Entrepreneurs Association helped to design, inventory, and staff Pacifica’s first student store! Under the leadership of local entrepreneur Jonathan Martinez, Minchin Center Director John Reimers, and Monty Minchin, students have the opportunity to influence everything from product offerings and displays to hardware choices as they assist in the running of The Wolf Shack. Students work to staff the store and YEA members have access to the financials to help monitor costs, sales, profits, and inventory.

Young Entrepreneurs Association

Business-minded students meet together to ideate, innovate, and create in this student-led club. Club members gather to study the craft of entrepreneurship—learning to explore their own gifts and passions, identify problems in the world, and craft ways of exercising their own gifts to meet human needs. The club studies subjects from marketing to business ethics; runs case studies; and participates in competitions hosted by national organizations such as DECA, the Diamond Challenge, and more!

The YEA also houses our DECA Chapter. DECA is a national organization whose mission is to prepare emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management. In 2023 Pacifica students participated in their first DECA competition and came away with a Honorable Mention in the Social Impact Leader of Tomorrow Challenge, sponsored by the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, earning $1000 in prize money for the club. 

THIS LITTLE LIGHT AFRICA CLUB

The Minchin Center also supports social entrepreneurship through organizations such as This Little Light Africa. TLLA is a non-profit founded to support local farming, solar energy, improved education and job creation in West Africa. TLLA seeks to create jobs, assist businesses and improve education in some of the most underserved parts of the world. Pacifica’s TLLA Club raises money and awareness through The Wolf Shack and other promotions and joins together with students from West Africa to learn about each other's culture and to do projects together. Social Entrepreneurship and purpose-driven investment are also features of the Minchin Center Economics and Entrepreneurship courses.

Insight Speaker Series

The Insight Speaker Series connects the classroom with the working world. Professionals from a variety of industries come alongside students to review business pitches, guest speak, guest teach, and lead off-campus trips to give students a taste of things outside of the classroom environment. They give unique insights on career success, professional and personal life, faith and religion, and society. We hope to have good conversations that challenge the assumptions of the broader Los Angeles community. Recent speakers include Dr. Anthony Bradley, and Michael Matheson Miller, senior research fellow at the Acton Institute and producer of the film, Poverty, Inc. The goal of the series is to have a dialogue that brings together what is being torn apart—a conversation that seeks intellectual hospitality and is about the pursuit of truth wherever it may lead.