Twenty Chicago-area high school girls will be heading to camp at DePaul University this summer, not to study nature, but to explore something quite different--the nature of business.

This is the second year DePaul’s College of Commerce has sponsored Camp Entrepreneur, a summer commuter camp for high school girls interested in future careers as business owners. The camp teaches young women the tools for launching a successful business and encourages exploration of their leadership skills.

DePaul management department faculty members and women business leaders will teach the young women how entrepreneurial ideas become business plans during the five-day camp, which begins June 23 at the DePaul Center, 1 E. Jackson Blvd. On June 24, campers will tour businesses in Chicago, Hillside and Elmhurst that are owned by women. Then they’ll use what they’ve learned to present business plans of their own to a panel of business experts, including Harris Bank officials, on June 27.

"The girls benefit enormously from the advice and encouragement of successful business women who continue to be their mentors even after camp ends," said Lisa K. Gundry, a DePaul associate professor of management who is co-directing the camp with Mollie Cole, chief of the Office of Women’s Business Development, Ill. Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. "The message Camp Entrepreneur sends to teenage girls is: Yes, you can become successful business leaders, and here’s how."

DePaul is one of several sites across the nation chosen each summer to host Camp Entrepreneur, which has taught more than 100 girls nationally about entrepreneurship. Camp Entrepreneur was launched four years ago by the National Education Center for Women in Business at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pa., to teach leadership skills and confidence to high school girls and to encourage them to consider business ownership as a career choice.

DePaul’s Camp Entrepreneur will bring together a diverse group of juniors and seniors from high schools in the city and suburbs, including students from Mather, Kelvyn Park and Von Steuben highs schools on the Northwest Side, Maria and Mother McAuley high schools on the South Side, Thornwood High School and Seton Academy in South Holland and Naperville North High School in Naperville. Corporate sponsors, such as Ameritech, Bank One, the Harris Foundation and the Federation of Women Contractors, provided financial assistance for some of the girls to attend camp.

Eriana Spencer, 17, of Flossmor, who attended Camp Entrepreneur last summer, said the program "showed me there are a lot of women in business--more than I thought."

"It opened my eyes to the fact that I could go into business and provided sponsors I could go back to for advice," she said. Spencer, who will be a senior at Homewood-Flossmor High School next fall, said she plans to earn a college degree in business administration, with a future career goal of becoming a corporate attorney or restauranteur.

Camp Entrepreneur Chicago is sponsored by DePaul’s management department and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs’ Office of Women’s Business Development. The program is supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration.