Glen Lake 'Transition' program becomes a real business: The Laker Chair Company.

FOUR "EMPLOYEES" of the Laker Chair Company
display an Adirondack chair that they helped build.
Pictured are (from left) Jon Tudor, Jason Sawyer,
Cassidy Simpson and Mike Lamb.

Andy Poineau of Cedar learned woodworking through his family and in shop class at Glen Lake High School.

The training has paid off.

Poineau, a freshman, is part of Glen Lake High School’s Transition program. The program’s goal is to teach life skills to special needs students.

"I worked in construction over the summer,
so I’m used to having to get things done."
– Andy Poineau,
Glen Lake freshman and shop foreman of Laker Chair Company

To reinforce the knowledge they are imparting to their students, teachers Judy Willey and Jeff Barrett came up with an idea: form a company and have the students apply for jobs within the company. But rather than make it a “paper” entity, they decided to make it a real company.

“We came up with the Laker Chair Company. Jeff and I are the CEOs, the kids like to joke about that,” said Willey. The students are building Adirondack chairs made of cedar wood, and then market and sell the chairs. The class has produced four chairs, which they donated to the Glen Lake Gala.

“We donated the chairs to the Gala as a way of getting the word out that we are making these high quality chairs and we will soon be selling them,” Willey said.

Poineau is the shop foreman, and runs the production end of the business. He makes sure the other students working in the shop are producing the pieces correctly, and that everyone is doing something. “I make sure everything is on task,” he said.

Dealing with budgets, deadlines and production problems is nothing new for Poineau. “I worked in construction over the summer, so I’m used to having to get things done,” he said.

Poineau applied for the shop foreman job and got it despite the fact he is one of the youngest students in the program. He said he is having fun, but knows there is a point to all the work.

Barrett oversees the production end of Laker Chair, guiding the students in building the sturdy-yet-stylish lounge chairs. Willey supervises the sales and marketing side. At the start of the semester, after the teachers had formed the company, Barrett wrote an employee handbook and each student had to apply for a job. The students had to develop a resume, submit an application, and go through the interview process.

“Fortunately for us the students applied for jobs that fit their personalities and talents,” Willey said.

Joining Poineau in leadership roles is Kasey Wilcox, who was chosen to be the advertisement manager, and Jon Tudor, who was named sales manager. Two students have been shooting video clips about making and selling the chairs.

Tudor, a junior at Glen Lake, likes to talk to people. “I’m not shy about meeting people. Being in sales was an easy decision,” he said.

Tudor seems to have the confidence and outgoing personality of a seasoned sales professional. “Walking up to complete strangers is no problem for me. I’m social, I talk to everybody,” he said. The skill he has worked on the most as part of the Transition program is networking. “It’s just like building friendships,” he said.

Willey and Barrett have been invited to make a presentation about their Transitions class at a state conference to be held later this school year.

To cover the costs for materials and other start-up expenses Willey secured a grant through the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District for $5,500. The student sales staff has been doing a bang-up job, she said.

“Our sales people have been very active. It got to the point to where our production people had to tell our sales people to slow down,” Willey said. The students held a company-wide meeting and decided a realistic goal for production is making four to five chairs a week.

The Laker Chair company has an order from the intermediate school district and Willey said the sales manager has contacted The Homestead’s sales manager to see if the resort would be interested in purchasing some of the chairs as well.

The overall goal for Willey and Barrett is to give the students some real-life skills that they can utilize after they graduate. “We told the students at the start of the school year that this class will teach them what they need to know to be an adult,” Willey said.

The students, while appreciative of that goal, have another more tangible one in mind. They will go on a “big field trip,” but where they go will be determined by how much money they make selling the chairs.

“It’s entirely up to them as to where they will be able to go. The goal is to make enough to go somewhere really fun and pay for everyone’s expenses,” Willey said.