Budding entrepreneurs: High school finance lessons blossom for brothers into business success

COLUMBUS, Ohio – – Derek and Dominik Zirkle thought the high school financial literacy class they took seven years ago was kind of lame in the beginning.

The twins, students at Madison High School in Lake County, learned the basics of organizing their financial lives from Theory Federal Credit Union — how to use checking and savings accounts, how compound interest works, how to pay bills online.

The Zirkles were uninterested. Their teacher talked to them about their attitude.

Then something clicked.

Today, the 24-year-olds apply the principles taught by the credit union in D & D Meadery. And, they used the credit union for assistance in growing their honey wine business, which they opened in 2024.

“The class gave the foundations to begin the journey. At least we had a place to start,” Dominik Zirkle said. “That’s what’s good about the class. It’s the avenue to start something. Otherwise, you’re out of there in the open wide ocean.”

Now high schoolers may receive more credit union education.

A change included in legislation for the state budget permits public and private schools that house branches of a credit union or a bank to give students earn credit toward their financial literacy graduation requirement for working in those outlets.

Ohio’s financial literacy requirement is still new. Students who entered ninth grade beginning July 1, 2022, must take a semester-long financial literacy class to graduate.

Technically, the student branch provisions in the state’s two-year budget went into effect Sept. 30, but there have been branches in some high schools for more than 10 years, giving students a chance to learn the ins and outs of finance. Over that time, the industry has been working with state education officials on what kind of student work experience could count as credit, said Matt Keys, marketing and communications director of the Ohio Credit Union League.

What student branches look like

Mentor-based Cardinal Credit Union opened its first student branch in 2012. Today it has sites at at Mentor, Willoughby South and Eastlake North high schools, as well as at Lake Catholic in Mentor and Notre Dame Cathedral Latin in Chardon.

The branches offer banking services one day a week during lunch periods. A Cardinal employee runs the branches, but students can volunteer as tellers.

Students who help at the branch sometimes get summer internships with the credit union.

“Maybe you’re helping as an intern in the banking, but you’re not going into banking,” said Christine Blake, Cardinal president and CEO. “Maybe you’re going into the marketing side of banking. Maybe you’re going into technology. We provide those opportunities for our students who are interning and working with us.”

Hands-on practice

Alongside the student branches, Cardinal and another Northeast Ohio institution, Theory Federal Credit Union based in Painesville, have for some time offered financial literacy curricula to high school students, taught by credit union employees.

Students learn the fundamentals of banking: How to open a bank account and manage it, keeping track of deposits and withdrawals, avoiding fraud, maintaining online safety, and using interest to build savings. They also learn about taking out loans, paying bills and building credit.

The credit unions seed small amounts of money in accounts for each student – Theory puts $10 in student checking accounts and $5 in their savings; Cardinal places $20 in each checking and $5 in each savings.

Students get to practice moving the money around, writing each other checks – and making mistakes – in a safe environment.

“They can afford to make minor mistakes,” said Michael DeSantis, Cardinal’s educational finance coordinator. “Sometimes we have to a make a mistake to learn.”

Theory’s classroom work at Madison has been going for eight years, said Kevin LaCamera, Theory’s business development manager. He visits teacher Brian Titman’s financial literacy class once a week and taught the Zirkle twins.

Return on investment

Most students enter the financial literacy class with a limited understanding of the basics, Titman said. If they have a part-time job, they likely know how to use an ATM.

But there are exceptions.

“I had a student last year in one of my classes who was already investing and making money in crypto,” Cardinal’s DeSantis said. “He knew more about crypto than I did, because his father was into it, and his father taught him. And this student was investing money in it and actually, at that point, was doing quite well in the account.”

Connor Duricky said he was fortunate that his parents gave him a good understanding about banking. He has a Cardinal account he got about 10 years ago as a student at Lake Catholic in a financial literacy class that opened his eyes to a field he now loves.

He studied finance at the University of Cincinnati and now is a manager for Cardinal’s Mentor branch and a loan officer.

“After the first month of the class, I saw my savings account was earning interest, and that was kind of a big awakening to me,” he said. “I was like, ‘Wait a second, I can just leave some money at this bank and they’re going to pay me?’

“I then got interested in certificates of deposit, then eventually the stock market and different venues to help grow my own money,” he said

The Zirkle twins’ experience was different, Titman and LaCamera said. They came into the class a bit rough and tumble, known at school as eccentric. Titman said they were skeptical of government and institutions.

He recalled having to talk with them about their attitudes.

But halfway through the class, Derek and Dominik became interested and began asking questions.

“It’s an incredible story – from where they came to what they’re doing now, it’s really mind-blowing,” LaCamera said. “They were not great students in terms of doing their work but they were always curious. They weren’t getting As and Bs but they were paying attention.”

The Zirkles applied the foundations they learned to building their business, D & D Meadery. They now distribute honey wine to over 300 retail locations.

“These kids are well on their way to being comfortable, arguably close to being millionaires by now, if they’re not already,” LaCamera said.

The business began as a honey winemaking hobby that grew out of control, with industrial equipment stored in storage units, Dominik Zirkle said.

They started the business with their savings. They’ve lived leanly, investing profits back into the company. They sought help from a Theory certified financial counselor who had visited their class in high school.

Their first loan was a personal loan to purchase a property, and they kept growing, he said. They developed a separate business entity and received a loan to finance commercial vehicles to do the distributing.

“As far as loans for the business, that is what we’ve done so far, which is still a big deal,” he said. “We’ve definitely come a long way from class, but for sure it started from there.”