At 17, Ben Richmond is a drop-out. A suit and tie-wearing, briefcase-carrying drop-out, who tomorrow will stand up and tell the National Economic Development Conference his business life story.
The former Havelock North High School pupil has been an apprentice at Hastings accounting firm Brown Webb Richardson for nearly two months,
and he's loving it - although being an accountant wasn't on his agenda at school. "I was a fireman at five . . . and a pilot. At about 12 it was a lawyer. I really enjoyed debating - always arguing," Ben says.
As well as fulltime work, he's in his first year of a business degree, majoring in accounting, and is now looking forward to becoming a chartered accountant.
Ben left school with a bang, leading Young Enterprise group ETNZ to two National Excellence awards for their ground-breaking product - a television advertisement for the Hawke's Bay Tourism website, promoted with a "win a Wine Country weekend" giveaway.
Mark Wilson, National Director of the Lions Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme, said Ben had entrepreneurial flair in abundance.
"He's one out of the box," Mr Wilson said.
"Taking a huge challenge and making it his own."
His youthful input would be a refreshing change from 30-somethings, Mr Wilson added.
The YES year, Ben said, won the group "a lot of recognition with people in high places". He wasn't so popular with his history teacher though. Answering a call from Paul Holmes during class didn't go down too well.
"Maybe one day I'll go back to the hot-shot entrepreneur thing," he says. But for now, he's keen to keep his student loan down and rake together $15,000 for a Toyota Altezza.
And the weekends? Ben lives with his grandparents on Oban Station, and makes good use of a lake on the farm.
Waterskiing is a biggie, Ben says, and he's been roped in to building "titanic" chook sheds for his grandma and aunt. * See 'Skills shortage hampering regions' - Page 5.
