Berks’ Best 2016 business winner: Paul Feightner, Wyomissing High School | Reading Eagle – NEWS Berks’ Best 2016 business winner: Paul Feightner, Wyomissing High School
Parents or guardians: Michael and Kristin Feightner.
Awards and honors: National Honor Society, high honor roll.
Activities highlights: TechnoSpartans club (founder, president, treasurer); chess team (co-president); Wyomissing Recreation Board (student representative); Technology Committee (chairman); Wyomissing Mini-THON; Wyomissing Area Education Foundation (student committee, financial committee, peer mediation); West Reading Fire Company volunteer firefighter; St. As he got older, he started his own lawn care business and worked sales at a local car dealership.He’s studied how some of the world’s famous entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, Sam Walton and Warren Buffett, turned their ideas into multibillion-dollar empires.On the precipice of his college years, Feightner says he wants to make a difference in the business world and to help others.It’s that drive that earned him top business honors in Reading Eagle Company’s annual Berks’ Best scholarship project this year.”I’ve always been interested in business and running my own thing,” said Feightner, 18, a Wyomissing High School senior. He likes the idea of giving back to his community, which has been instilled over five years as a volunteer firefighter and through many other community activities.This year, Feightner and a team of students created Watt, an app and mobile website that allows users to input their monthly power usage and compete against their neighbors to see who can reduce their usage the most.He said the idea works well in 2016 as a fun social media experience and as a useful energy-saving tool.”It’s great for sustainability and to make for a better world,” he said.Feightner has distinguished himself through his academic and entrepreneurial pursuits and founded the high school’s technology club, said Curt Minich, the district’s computer department chairman.He’s also volunteered his time for other important causes, at elementary school computer and chess workshops, fundraisers and other community events.”He is one of the most entrepreneurial students I have known in my veteran teaching career,” Minich said.Feightner plans to study entrepreneurship and cybersecurity at Penn State University and sees big opportunities in apps, energy, health care and technology.”I’m ready and go out and learn about the world on a bigger scale,” he said.It’s another step in the life of a social entrepreneur.Contact Matthew Nojiri: 610-371-5062 or mnojiri@readingeagle.com.
