Grand Canyon University alumnus Austin Walker was hanging out one night with one of his good friends when they started talking about what they wished they learned in high school.
Sure, they learned the quadratic formula and Pythagorean theorem. But they had no clue what a 401K was.
You hear all sorts of news stories – the “lost art of” stories – about how the current generation no longer knows how to ride a bicycle (they play video games). Or how to tie their shoes (velcro-closure sneakers, anyone?).
Schools no longer teach cursive handwriting.
And goodbye good ol' typewriting class.
In the computer age, why?
“We made a list of all the things we wish we would have learned in high school,” Walker said. “Then we thought, how cool would it be to create a ministry or business to help these students?”
So he came up with Geared Up Youth.
Walker spent two years writing the program's curriculum and another two years designing the life-skills education company whose mission “is to raise up the next generation with critical life skills,” he said.
That lack of those essential life skills isn’t anyone’s fault, he said. It’s just a shift in the world – in the way of things – with more time diverted to technology, video games and computers, to name a few.
He wants to fill in those gaps.
His Geared Up Youth workbook is divided into money management, career and professional development, health and wellness, and diverse skill sets.
It covers everything from dining etiquette – "don't start eating until everyone is served and always thank the host or hostess, even if you didn't enjoy the meal" – to basic car maintenance, how to write a check, how to build a resume, the 40/30/30 rule of budgeting (40% for necessities, 30% for savings and 30% for everything else), and the importance of compound interest. As he quotes in the workbook, Albert Einstein said, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it."
Geared Up Youth has become Walker's passion project – something he never envisioned for himself when he was studying sports management at GCU.
Walker, who’s from Arizona, attended Christian schools and wanted to remain in a Christian education environment for college. GCU seemed like the perfect fit for him. He thrived, earning the title of Outstanding Senior in the Colangelo College of Business and serving as the first president of the Sports Business Club.
His sports management degree led him to the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he worked as coordinator of group events and hospitality. During his time with the organization, the executive team selected him to participate in the organization’s Leadership Academy.
“As awesome as that was, I got laid off, along with everyone else, during COVID, when there were no games going on,” he said. “It felt like the whole industry got laid off.”
Walker felt lost after that dream job.
“I grieved, no doubt,” he said. “It was incredibly difficult at the time. I remember being 26 and calling my mom and, after that, crying – the uncertainty of the future and what it’s going to hold.
“But I realized, after I got let go … I had this moment of thinking, I do like working in sports. It’s awesome. But it is taxing, and your work-life balance is really, really tough. I wanted to be known for way more than my job someday.”
That’s when he saw God showing up in his life in unexpected ways.
He began working full time for the Cardon Development Group, a development group for commercial, single-family housing and retail development founded by Don Cardon. Walker, who minored in marketing, oversaw public relations, marketing strategy, branding and event planning for the company.
It’s also when he had an opportunity to work with Cardon and leaders at GCU to create the LOPES Academy at the Cardon Center, a space that makes its home at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The LOPES Academy offers a two-year, nondegree program for neurodivergent adults with a curriculum focused on academics and job readiness.
While Walker still works with the Cardon Group as an independent contractor, he now works full-time with Gloo, a tech company that serves churches and pastors.
“It kind of fell into my lap, honestly,” Walker said of the opportunity. He met company CEO Scott Beck at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Beck founded Einstein Bagels, was chairman and CEO of Boston Market and was vice chairman and COO of Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., to name just a few of his business ventures.
Beck brought Walker onto his team at Gloo.
But for all that he’s done in his young career so far with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Cardon Group and at Gloo, for Walker, Geared Up Youth is where his heart is these days.
Geared Up Youth's 113-page workbook is offered at his company’s website, gearedupyouth.com.
“I would have loved to have had this book in my hands when I was 15 years old. I think that would have been less of a shellshock to things that I just had to climb through and figure out, like most of us did in our 20s,” Walker said.
Beyond that, he has been partnering with financial advisors to teach basic finance workshops to their clients’ children and grandchildren.
“We teach them a2+b2=c2 (in school). But they don’t know how to write a resume. They don’t know how to do their own taxes or invest. They don’t know the difference between a Roth IRA and a 401K or very basic things they’re just going to get thrown into when they turn 18 and they’re off to college and they’re left to fend for themselves.”
Walker also is pilot testing his program in some schools.
Outside of that, he gives free life skills curriculum, too, to foster and at-risk youth.
“The heart behind it is not to get rich. It’s not to make me famous. It’s literally just to raise up that next generation better than I was,” he said. “ … I’d like to influence youth in the ways that I can – in the ways I feel that the Lord has led me to.”
GCU Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected] or 602-639-7901.
