In the corporate world, John Blix, South business teacher and Business Professionals of America (BPA) sponsor, has done it all. He has created resumes, been interviewed to get a job, interviewed prospective employees, been laid off, went back to school to get higher education and found a way to get back into the workforce.

According to Blix, he started his career by being certified by both a Master of Business Administration [MBA] Degree and a Certified Public Accountants [CPA] Degree. He also pursued a career as an insurance auditor. After having been laid off, he got a job working at Discover Card and stayed there for over 14 years.

“It was that experience at Discover that planted the seed that at some point [I wanted to] help young people make sense of their financial life,” Blix said. “[I] saw just how important knowing and not knowing is in terms of getting yourself in trouble or being secure with your future.”

Blix came to South in 2013 and currently teaches Consumer Ed and Investment Strategies. According to Blix, Investment Strategies is a class with a focus on long-term wealth accumulation through various investment strategies.

“We cover things that people need to know to make sense of their own investing world, choices you would make when you’re employed and have a 401K, saving for long term goals and risk assessment,” Blix said.

One of Blix’s main focuses is to improve his students’ public speaking. To do so, Blix created a current event project in which students have to find an article relevant to the current course, summarize it to the class and create discussion questions to encourage conversation about the topic.

“Students find [current events] a nice, safe way to gain some public speaking experience,” Blix said. “Experience is the only way you can get better at that stuff.”

Blix’s corporate experiences have transferred into his teaching experience, according to junior Megan Briggs, a member of BPA. She sees the relationship between his corporate experience and his ability to work well with a very diverse group of people based on their individual skill sets.

“He takes time to know each student’s needs, strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles,” Briggs said.

According to Blix, he left the corporate world to help kids make sense of accounting, finance and business.

“I absolutely love [teaching], and I wish I had done it a lot earlier,” Blix said. “I really wish, if I could go back in time and have still worked because […] I think it’s really valuable to have [credentials], but if I could back it up maybe five or ten years earlier and gotten into education, I wish I had.”