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Those who have worked with 28-year-old Tien Huynh describe him as a "consummate businessman."

In November 2007, Huynh and two former high school classmates acquired Accell Mobile in Wichita, Kan. Today their company is the largest authorized T-Mobile dealer in Wichita and growing, with eight stores and more than 20 employees.

Despite his young age, Huynh has years of entrepreneurial experience. As a boy, "while other kids my age watched cartoons, I tuned into programs about the world of business," he said. In high school when one of his teachers, Jeff Darr, mentioned the new Youth Entrepreneurs Kansas class he would be teaching at Wichita High School Northwest, Huynh enrolled and "quickly became a leader in the YEK classroom and in the program," Darr said.

"What YEK did for him was to show him the basics of creating a business plan, as well as a networking system," says Darr.

"The partnerships YEK offers are unreal; every student would love to have one," says Huynh. "The class wasn't about multi-million dollar businesses. The curriculum was much more sensible and practical, with the focus on how to start a small business, how to go to work and do it."

Huynh's business plan for YEK involved creating a speakers' bureau to book and coordinate outside speakers for corporations. His plan won at both the class and city levels before moving onto state competition. Later, as a student majoring in entrepreneurship at Wichita State University he started Entertainment Empire. His Accell Mobile partner, Jeff Koerner, laughs that as a college student, Huynh didn't simply go to parties; he built a business throwing them. "He'd coordinate the location, the DJs, the drink specials," says Koerner. "We joke that, even though we'd known each other in high school, the reason we got to be such good friends in college is because I wanted to go to the parties."

Huynh's college internships and post-college jobs included positions at an advertising agency, the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau. He also worked for Bombardier Learjet in human resources and sales. In 2005, he and Koerner began a business that sold memory-foam mattresses.

That business required extensive travel, so the partners began focusing on something more local. "Tien always wanted to go into selling cell phones and I wasn't as convinced," says Koerner. "He started to pitch it pretty hard and as he moved forward, he kept bringing me along, setting up meetings with T-Mobile reps and talking about the numbers."

When Huynh and Koerner decided to acquire a store, they brought in a third partner, Blake Vanatta. In its first year, Accell Mobile quickly grew to five stores. Huynh oversees marketing and human resources, Koerner handles real estate and financials, and Vanatta heads up operations. "It's hard to find a group this young, this early in their careers, who know how to compartmentalize their responsibilities as an ownership group," says Mike Schlundt, regional account manager for T-Mobile. "It helps them to be extremely efficient."

Huynh appreciates and has learned from the generosity of the Koch foundations. "When I think about the Koch family, I think about how they have stayed so grounded, that they give back the way they do," he says. "Think about all the people YEK impacts, starting with the students who have gone through the course, who are then better employees and better college students. And the impact those employees then have. Just the decisions I make impact 20 employees and their families. When you think about it, you can't measure the difference the Kochs and their foundations have made."

Founded in 1991 by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Youth Entrepreneurs Kansas is a Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation grant recipient. Learn more at www.yeks.org.

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