It was probably the title that first attracted Leslie Hall to accountancy instructor Christy Burge’s 341 Honors class.
“What it takes to be a CEO” is an interdisciplinary seminar class designed to expand real-world awareness in students accustomed to over achieving in classrooms. It sounded perfect to Hall.
“I don’t do group projects,” she said. “I’m a perfectionist and this sounded like a great way to develop individual leadership skills.”

But by the time the course ended four months later, everything about Hall’s expectations had changed except for the value of the class.
“I discovered you have to know how to work with others and use every single minute of the day,” she said. “But I was pumped from the first day of class to the last.”
The class required the students to form teams and create a community service project. Hall, a nursing school junior, connected with Monet Duke, a May Justice Administration graduate headed to law school this fall, and Elizabeth Dowell, a biology pre-med major. Their first idea—a soup kitchen—went nowhere. But when the trio discovered each of their families had been touched by the war in Iraq, they crafted a plan to support the troops by sending “care” packages overseas.

They named their organization “Almost Home Military Care Package Mission.” Their idea was to collect donated items and assemble packages that would remind soldiers that the folks back home were thinking about them every day.
Dowell remembered the group’s first task. “You had three type A personalities looking at a mountain of work to be done and we were each ready to be in charge,” she said. “We needed one plan.”
“We learned pretty quickly that good communication was the key,” recalled Duke. “It wasn’t enough to work hard. We had to make each other feel appreciated and valued.”
To avoid micromanaging each other, they each assumed an area of responsibility and went to work. With each small success, they saw the project mushroom.
“Keeping in touch and finding new ways to work things into already busy schedules made us focus on results, not the process,” said Dowell. “You did what you had to do to get where you needed to be.”
“It turned into a full-time job,” said Hall. “Promoting the program, calling for donations, coordinating pick-ups, storing the items. Even when we figured out how to delegate things and share roles, time management was a huge issue.”
The learning curve caught up with Hall at an inopportune time. “I was getting ready to go on TV to talk about the program and I was hyperventilating. It was not what I expected.”
Their project made news on seven radio stations and one TV station and generated contributions from a five-county area.
Eventually the team stockpiled enough socks, CDs, magazines, candy, lotions, Girl Scout cookies and other items to assemble 200 packages and deliver them to Ft. Knox. Their presentation to the camp commander included a DVD they created highlighting the generosity of all the individuals, churches and businesses who contributed to the program’s success.
“But I was a mess,” said Hall. “When I saw the impact of what we had accomplished, it made me cry.”
The students’ efforts were spotlighted in a story in the Ft. Knox newspaper, including praise from Army officials. Although it’s unlikely “Almost Home” will live beyond the class project phase, Duke believes it represented something special.
“We learned things we will never forget,” she said. “And I think other people did, too.”
Hall, who also is a Girl Scout leader, has kept the project’s flame flickering by encouraging her scouts to become pen pals to the soldiers.
“CEOs have more responsibility than you ever imagine,” she said.