Retirement Announcement - Mike Rush

JA announces retirement of President, Mike Rush

Author: Amanda Bloniarczyk
Community Involvement
Published: Wednesday, 22 Jan 2025

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Junior Achievement of North Central Michigan announces President retirement

Midland, MI - Junior Achievement of North Central Michigan Board of Directors has announced the retirement of President and CEO Mike Rush effective July 31, 2025. Mike will leave JA after leading the organization for 18 years. Mike shared his passion for youth and his entrepreneurial spirit as he began his JA journey in 1986 as an advisor for the JA Company Program. Soon thereafter, he joined the local JA Board of Directors, holding several leadership positions, which culminated with him serving as Chairman of the Board in 1997. Mike continued to be involved in JA as a volunteer and was ultimately hired as President and CEO in July, 2007. Due to the generosity of the Ieuter family, Dow, local foundations and the Midland community, Mike, in 2010, was able to lead the effort to relocate the JA office to its current location on Indian Street. In 2016, through a great team effort, Mike successfully managed the merger of the two JA offices located in the Great Lakes Bay Region resulting in a territory encompassing 18 counties. After navigating the pandemic era, the JA of North Central Michigan team has nearly doubled in size and is poised to further expand programming in the upcoming year.

A search committee comprised of members of the JA of North Central Michigan Board of Directors is leading a comprehensive search for a new President and CEO, who is anticipated to be identified and in place by April, 2025. Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating K-12 students about workforce readiness, how business works
and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs. These programs help prepare young people for the real world by showing them how to manage their money, create jobs that will make their communities more robust and apply entrepreneurial thinking to the workplace. Junior Achievement collaborates with the education and business communities to help students make the important connections between what they learn in school and experience in real life after graduation. For more information about Junior Achievement visit their website at
https://www.janorthcentralmi.org.