When Jeff Fortune owned two hotels along St. Pete Beach, he found new employees often were unable to handle even entry level jobs. It wasn't only their schools at fault, he reasoned; their families and communities weren't preparing the young for work. "If the parents are ill-prepared or unwilling to mentor a child, who's going to do it?" he remembers wondering. "It's awfully late to do it as an employer."

In 1995 he sold his Fortune Hotel Co. with its two high-end resorts, TradeWinds and Radisson Sandpiper Beach, to his 708 employees and took early retirement at 52, joined by his wife, Joan, a prominent St. Petersburg attorney. In his leisure, the restless Fortune learned to juggle, ride a unicycle and rollerblade. An engineer by education, he restored and equipped a 1955 Chevy station wagon to run in a road rally in September from Beijing to Paris commemorating a 1907 road race. And he continued to think a lot about poor kids who weren't being prepared for life.

That year, Jeff and Joan were introduced to Barbara and Bob Anders, retired educators from the Pinellas County school system who shared the Fortunes' concerns. At about that time, Fortune read a piece in Parade magazine about Nativity Prep School in Boston, where poor kids in fifth through eighth grades were put through a rigorous education program with a heavy emphasis on values. The two couples flew to Boston and inevitably found their way to the fountainhead of such schools: Nativity Mission Center on Manhattan's Lower East Side. This 27-year-old Jesuit model has been replicated in more than a dozen urban schools.

"We all agreed, 'This is going to happen in St. Pete,'" recalls Fortune. "We set a timetable without any teachers or money - we just made a decision. We adopted the strategy of 'Ready Fire Aim.'"

Appealing to local business, the group promised to do the leg work if it could count on financial support. Fortune turned first to his former employees (now owners) and several hundred of them responded with payroll deductions. Raymond James, Danka, Beall's and the St. Petersburg Times contributed scholarships, as did Tech Data, our cover story subject, which also is equipping the school with computers and software. Mark T. Mahaffey, CEO of the Mahaffey Co., a major real estate developer in central Florida, told Fortune, "What you really should say is, 'There's no choice. It has to be done, and we have to make a long-term commitment.'"

Today in St. Petersburg, the first building of Academy Prep School rises on 2.7 acres of wooded land virtually given by the Catholic diocese to the nonsectarian school. It's the same area where only 10 months ago the city experienced a night of destructive riots, and while the school plan predated the riot, the juxtaposition of the two events has more than a little symbolic significance.

From the beginning, according to Jeff Fortune, each decision for the school was made against a single criteria: Will it be good for the kids? For example, the founders were urged to bring in low-cost modular buildings that could be rented and would help the young venture's strained cash flow. But they felt such temporary buildings sent a subtle message of impermanence to the kids, whose lives until now have been anything but stable. Instead, they chose buildings of solid masonry design that were both pleasant and permanent.

Academy Prep began last month with a day camp for boys from which 15 fifth and 15 sixth graders will be chosen. In the next two years, the school will expand to grades seven and eight, at which time a separate girls school will be added.

Who are candidates for the school? "We're talking about the kids who tested pretty well in first and second grade, but who started to deteriorate," says Fortune. "They're feeling street pressure and they're lost."

Promising a new way of life to the youngsters, Academy Prep, like its New York forebear, will be known as a "center" to make clear it is more than just a school. "The center becomes the little school house of old," says Fortune, "a place you know is safe. The center tells the student it will be your second family. There will always be a door to bang on if things go badly at home. We're going to be with you when you're through college. It will always be there to help you."

It will run 52 weeks a year, six days a week, beginning at 7:30 a.m. with breakfast and running until 5 p.m., with mandatory study hall after dinner for those who don't maintain a B average. Academics will be rigorous, ranging from math and science to art and drama. The school has a headmaster who formerly ran a Connecticut prep school and who will live upstairs in the school building. There will be a small permanent teaching core, but the center will rely heavily on recent college graduates, who will be paid $250 a month plus room, board and insurance.

Academy Prep will spend between $7,000 and $8,000 per student per year. All will attend tuition-free, and the school expects graduates to get into top public schools or gain scholarships to private day and boarding schools. Indeed, other Nativity Mission offsprings find their students in great demand among the nation's elite college preparatory schools.

Fortune hopes that his group's experience will lead to Academy Prep being replicated around Florida. His advice to others: "When you run into resistance, be prepared to go around or through or over it to make it happen."

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