Interview with Jeff Kahl, Founder of Northland Scholars Academy- Perky Collar Radio Show- Hosted by David M. Frankel

"If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go with others." This quote is the perfect way to sum up this interview with Jeff Kahl, Founder of Northland Scholars Academy in Dunbar, Wisconsin. To Jeff this 600 acre campus was the home he never had and the largest facility in Wisconsin. This 1,000 student campus was designed to prepare people for non-profit work. Over time it evolved into an International Boarding High School with a capacity of 1,200 beds. 90% of the students are from outside the United States. 

This campus started in 1959 when Paul Patz founded a Christian Camp at age 54, he was the founder and CEO of Patz Sales. The original name of the camp was Northland Mission Camp. 1960-1976 the campus primarily operated summer programs and rentals events with family members. In 1976, Northland Baptist Bible Institute was founded to provide ministry training for rural communities and farming families with students who wanted to study and prepare for ministerial careers. This all started with 16 students.

In 1978, The school changed from a Bible Institute to a 4 year Christian Training College and hired their 1st president. In 1984, Jeff hitchhiked from Detroit, Michigan to Northland to attend the college. In 1987 Northland Mission Camp changed to Northland Camp and Conference Center. At this time, the camp was growing to one of the largest camps in the midwest. Jeff was hired full time as the Program Director during his senior year in college.   At this time, 400 families were attending Family Camps, 3,500 youth campers, over 5,000 overall campers with 200 staff members. 

While camp was growing in popularity so was Northland Baptist Bible College with over 1,000 students from all over the country which equaled the greatest expansion from 1987 to 2003. In 2000, Jeff Kahl became the Camp Director and the Vice President of the college. However, in 2003, Jeff accepted a new leadership role in Michigan and ended his 19-year role at Northland. From 2003-2015, while trying to expand and grow the camp and college, they saw significant losses in students and campers and were forced to close.

In 2015, while Jeff was in Nicaragua building another college, he learned of Northland's struggles and made a phone call to offer assistance. Northland accepted his offer, made Jeff the Board of Directors and gave him the opportunity to bring in new board members to salvage the camp, the college was put was on the shelf. In 2017, Jeff Kahl founded the Northland Scholars Academy, a school that would reach the international community and eventually provide enough revenue to keep the camping program functional and the larger campus used. 

With new leadership, the campus was back hosting large events, sporting events, fine arts events and anything you can imagine a large campus could support. Then it all collapsed. Jeff was forced to run everything by himself for 6 months with no campers and no students. In 2020, Jeff stayed the course, found some investors to revitalize the campus once again and to this day is a thriving college and camp providing stellar programs and outstanding opportunities for the international community. 

Jeff is truly an inspiration and an Entrepreneur that used persistence and passion to make his dream a reality. 

Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoy the show.

Warmest Regards,

David M. Frankel

Perky Collar Inventor, Perky, LLC Founder & Perky Collar Radio Show Host

www.PerkyLLC.com

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