If your residence needs exterior painting, a solution is just a phone call away from Broad Ripple Magnet High School alumni Austin Wills.

"Student Painters, LLC is mainly an internship program through Young Entrepreneurs Across America (YEAA), its parent company. YEAA is an organization that gives students the tools to become America's next great entrepreneurs through the medium of running his or her own painting company while simultaneously helping them earn tuition for their academic years. They're based in Shelby Township, Michigan and have recently expanded to Arizona and Colorado, but are located mostly in the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin). Their business model has a high success rate with house painting, not just for aesthetics, but for entrepreneurial experience while providing a service to the community," he said.

This year the team started out as 76 interns, led by professionals, that are each assigned a territory. "My territory is the 46220 zip code area of Broad Ripple that also extends to the east of this community. For training this past fall, we went to seminars to learn more about the business and how to be successful as a painter and businessman. Spring is our marketing season when we network, send fliers, and cold call potential customers. May is when our production season begins. We start right after we get out of school and our last day is September 10. We usually stop around August, but if there are additional customers that have houses to paint, students return on weekends to finish up the work. We do mostly exterior house painting and staining - house trim, shutters, garages, fences, decks, barns and detached garages. It's a painting company that I run that provides a good service to the communities and helps me pay for college," explained Wills, who is completing his sophomore year at Indiana University.

A local resident from the area, Wills excelled in various extra-curricular activities in middle school and at Broad Ripple Magnet High School, where he graduated. "I started out at Shortridge Middle School playing piano and violin in their orchestra. At BRMHS, I ran track and played tennis my sophomore and junior years and acted in the musical Bye, Bye Birdie during my sophomore year. When I was in high school, I also did photography and was interested in learning how to run a company in case the opportunity arose down the road," he said. Wills also served as junior and senior class president while a member of the National Honor Society.

Student Painters can be found in almost every major city in Indiana. "It depends on where the interns are located. We have at least one manager in every city surrounding Indianapolis and are also in Lafayette, Fort Wayne, Bloomington, and South Bend areas, he noted.

"We are different from other painting companies in many ways. We hire actual college students and provide them with paint training classes around the state of Indiana where we brush up on our skills. All paints come from Sherwin-Williams and have a product warranty as well as a one-year warranty with the company. Student Painters also carries $1 million liability insurance as well as full workers-compensation where a lot of companies don't provide any insurance," Wills mentioned.

After a prospective customer calls their local branch or submits an on-line form to the main office, they are contacted by a local branch manager for an appointment and provided a free, written estimate. After signing a contract, requiring a 20 percent deposit, a time is scheduled when power washing the house occurs, one to two weeks before painting begins. Scraping, sanding (done by hand), and caulking (where necessary) are done before a primer is applied and painting begins. After completion, Student Painters and their customers inspect their work with the homeowner before the job is done. Testimonials can be read at: www.studentpainters.biz/student/testimonials/parent-testimonials.

Matt Sumner is a Regional Manager of YEAA and works with Wills. "I was interviewed and offered a branch manager position with Student Painters during my sophomore year at Purdue. During that fall and into the winter, I was trained in a classroom setting ultimately on how to run my own venture. At the time, I had never had any field experience with entrepreneurship, so learning how to run a business was a lot of fun but took more hard work, perseverance, and determination than anything I had ever done. In the end, this program has given me more opportunity, resume-building skills, and real-world experience than anything else I have ever done."

"I am going into my third year with Student Painters and will graduate from Purdue in May. This summer, it is my job to oversee most of the northern Indianapolis production and provide all of the branch managers with the training necessary to run a business. Additionally, I monitor the quality of our work to ensure a quality control for each job. I am excited to see our managers transform from traditional college students to successful entrepreneurs in over the next few months," Sumner added. The abilities and skills learned by these college students and Sumner through YEAA can be implemented in various capacities throughout their careers.

Interested families and individuals can find more information at www.studentpainters.biz where you can get more information and see a gallery of some past jobs. They can also call their national phone line 1-888-839-3385 where homeowners are asked for their zip code before forwarding the information on the branch manager for that area. Those in the Broad Ripple community can contact Wills directly at 443-9302.

Austin Wills and Matt Sumner's entrepreneurial project with Student Painters provides a valuable community service to homeowners in the Broad Ripple area and beyond.