FEATURED FRANCHISEES
KATRINA GOMEZ
JEFF MOSS
Katrina Gomez, Kumon Franchisee, Doral, Florida
Jeff Moss, College HUNKS Hauling Junk Franchisee, Wilmington, North Carolina
Before she became a mother, Katrina Gomez knew she wanted her future children to attend Kumon. She didn’t realize at the time that it would soon become her career. “I had students in my classrooms, across different grade levels, who were Kumon students and something that always stood out to me was how independent those students were and how they had grit,” said Gomez, who is the owner and instructor at the Kumon Math and Reading Center of Doral. Her children soon found that same success, learning ahead of their grade level, which led her to eventually owning her own center near Miami. Gomez, who has a master’s degree in reading, has been a teacher for 17 years in Florida. Now her educational expertise continues to help children who aren’t native English speakers learn the language through Kumon. That program is Kumon’s new English for Spanish Speakers Program in Florida, which she helped launch earlier this year. The program is part of Kumon’s English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program which services English language learners in multiple languages around the world. “It is known that when a child learns one language formally in early childhood, it makes it easier to learn another language,” she said. “If a child is able to learn more than one language in early childhood then they will be much more likely to easily learn another in their lifetime.” The EFL Program caters to the unique needs of students who want to enhance their English proficiency. By leveraging the Kumon Method, students in Florida have access to a comprehensive and structured approach to master English.
90 FRANCHISING WORLD / September 2024
For nearly a decade before he joined College HUNKS Hauling Junk and Moving, the holidays were filled with angst for Jeff Moss. He worked in the sales and marketing division for a large pharmaceutical company and watched as his friends and colleagues were laid off from their jobs. Moss knew one day his number would be called. It took nine years, but it eventually happened. “I felt I was always at the mercy of corporate America before I got downsized,” he said. “Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is supposed to be a joyous time, was when they found it convenient to lay people off.” Moss, who served in Operation Desert Storm as an attack helicopter pilot, didn’t let it get him down. His friend owned a College HUNKS location in Atlanta and encouraged him to open one in Wilmington, North Carolina. Moss opened in 2018 and made company history by grossing the highest sales for his first month in business and more than $1 million in sales during his first year. Each year since, he’s been able to celebrate the holidays with his employees and provide Thanksgiving turkeys, which he and his managers smoke, and homemade barbecue sauce that was his father’s recipe. “I had the chance to change things for others and not put them through what my family went through over nine seasons of holidays,” he said. “At the end of the day, College HUNKS has given me my life back and total directional control of where I want to take my company.”