Chad Collins Honored With DBJ Top 40 Under 40 Nomination

Chad Collins has had a successful career in Corporate America, managing sales teams for several Fortune 500 companies. He also consulted as workforce development manager to multiple organizations in rapidly growing industries. His passion, however, for most of his life was in becoming a special education teacher. Family circumstances intervened and he put his dream of becoming a teacher on the fast track.

Currently a special education teacher, Collins realized quickly that there were gaps in what he was teaching that could be filled with his corporate background and experiences. To the benefit of his students, he is doing just that.

“I wanted to be an educator and give back like people had invested into me during those developmental years of elementary school, junior high and high school. I grew up doing the Regional Special Olympics as a volunteer. I have grown up with the heart and the passion for that population. With the right educator and the right advocate for their success, not only are they going to succeed in school, they’re also going to succeed in life,” shares Collins.

In addition to teaching, Collins helped co-found a premium publishing and media company called Authority Media Agency, which helps business-of-one professionals leverage their expertise to build their career brand. His other passion is helping Generation Z students learn about entrepreneurship, something that is not often taught in schools. As an entrepreneur himself, he developed an entrepreneur academy that teaches elementary-aged students how to run a business, using the lemonade stand model. His program is quite comprehensive and has become very popular. This after-school program allows him to teach and coach students that are not in his classroom.

“I get them at third, fourth and fifth grade level, when their little minds are just starting to get formed. I have a chance to impart the skills that are really going to teach them self-confidence and motivation and give them grit. The kinds of things that will carry them through life and give them social and emotional skills that they’re going to learn through growing a business,” explains Collins.

Chad T Collins, former corporate success and current education and business-of-one success, is changing the world in his own way, one student at a time.