Austin Business and Entrepreneurship Academy is changing the way students learn about money, business, and management. One student has received the chance of a lifetime to put his dreams in motion.

Jamar Lynch is a 16-year-old academy high school student that wants to give back to his grandmother, the United States, and his mentor Malcolm Crawford, one of the school’s founders. With high hopes and dreams, Lynch applied to the school knowing that his hunger for construction would grow large enough that one day he could own his own construction firm. This is why he wanted to attend such a school, to give him the steps to understand both business and entrepreneurship.

“Austin Business and Entrepreneurship Academy will teach students the other side of business, the budgeting and managing,” said Malcolm Crawford, who is also the school’s external relations director.

Crawford added that Lynch is a very active student and is very interested in construction, and he senses the dedication of the determined student.

At the age of 12, Lynch began to help his grandfather around the house, and that’s when he knew he loved to fix things. His love for math and business classes also explains why he enjoys the thought of fixing things, rather they be at his home or at his job on the weekends with a construction company.

With his weekend job, he has been trained to hang dry wall, dig up pipes, drop ceilings, and work with common power tools. According to Lynch, “I go to school, work and play the drums at church on Sunday. I have a social life, and I go out every now and then, but this is what I am about.”

Lynch is a teen with a bright smile and wonderful sense of humor who likes joking with his mentor, Crawford.

But because of certain circumstances, Lynch’s grandparents has to raise him and his two younger sisters. Because of his grandparents’ love of education, all three of the siblings have gone to private schools to get the best out of education. Lynch feels he owes his success to his grandparents because his grandfather, he said, is always the voice assuring him he can do it, and his grandmother is always close behind with her love and encouragement.

Lynch plans to finish high school and enroll in the Navy, he said, to give something back to the United States, and also going to college for free and getting more training in his trade. He is looking to study commercial construction. Lynch feels by the time he is out of the Navy he will be ready to start his company.

“I want to give back to my grandparents and to Mr. Crawford because they want the best for me,” he said.

Lynch is among several Austin community members profiled in the 2007 Austin Community Guide, published on Feb. 15. More profiles from the guide will run in upcoming weeks in the Austin Weekly News.