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40 Under 40 Mentor of the Year Award
Video: 40 Under 40 Mentor of the Year 
Val Canez/Tucson Business Edge Thank you to our Mentor of the Year judges for taking on the difficult task of choosing one person for this award from the outstanding nominees. From left: Barney Holzman, attorney at Fennemore Craig and the 2007 Mentor of the Year; Edna Meza Aguirre, community philanthropy officer, Community Foundation of Southern Arizona; and Stanley Reynolds, professor of Economics and vice dean of the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. Raena Janes"We laugh a lot."
That's how 2008 40 Under 40 Mentor of the Year winner Raena Janes and her nominator, Jackie Trujillo-Watins, sum up their relationship.
And ...
"We fight all the time," says Trujillo-Watins. "But we absolutely complement each other; we have a balance."
And the relationship is well beyond that of boss and employee or mentor and protˇgˇ. The two are truly friends. Janes, founder and superintendent of La Paloma Academy charter school, even sang at Trujillo-Watins wedding - on La Paloma's campus.
The two met when Trujillo-Watins, looking to enroll her children, walked into a day care center run by Janes.
"Jackie was in a rough place. She had just moved from North Carolina and left her husband," Janes says. "I gave her a job at the preschool so she could be close to her kids."
Janes says that she soon realized she wanted Trujillo-Watins to be a part of her ambitious plan to create a new charter school.
"I could see the potential in her, but she couldn't see the potential in herself," says Janes, a 2006 Tucson Business Edge 40 Under 40 award winner.
Trujillo-Watins helped Janes write the charter for La Paloma Academy, now southern Arizona's largest charter school with more than 1,100 students enrolled in 2005.
Janes then paid for Trujillo-Watins to attended numerous educational seminars and conferences, and when the central campus was completed in 2006, Janes named her principal.
The next year Trujillo-Watins was recognized as a Tucson Business Edge 40 Under 40 winner.
"Jackie is tremendous. She's done 90 percent of the work. I will pay for her to go to anything school-related, and I'm paying for her to finish her doctorate," Janes says.
Trujillo-Watins says Janes, 35, has wisdom beyond her years, and that is what makes her such an outstanding mentor.
"Every stumbling block I've ever come across in my life, (Janes) gets me back on track." -Luke Davis |