1993 Alumni Phil Speer and Vincent Jones

Phil at our 2009 Alumni Retreat

Nearly 20 years after I attended my first camp at what was then called the California Teen Leadership Program, I still look back at those weekends as some of the best of my life. Growing up in Carlsbad, California, it was easy for me, like a lot of teens, to have a narrow perspective on life, and to consider the day-to-day plight of high school to be “all that matters.” Going to the Teen Leadership camp, meeting teens from all over the state, as well as some from other states, helped me realize that there was a whole world out there. I’m not sure if I would have had the confidence to travel all the way across the country to attend Syracuse University had I not attended this leadership camp.

Phil graduated from Syracuse University and has an MBA from USC. He currently resides in New York and is an Account Manager at Buddy Media.