So what, the girls in the 7th grade class wanted to know, does 3M Co. CEO George Buckley do for a living?

Smiling, he said: "People think I'm in charge of the whole thing."

Recently at Battle Creek Middle School in St. Paul, the guy in charge of the whole thing insisted that this class of uniform-clad girls at an inner-city middle school could also find success, through education.

To help drive home the point, by the end of the school year, 192 volunteers from 3M will have worked with the St. Paul Public Schools seventh-graders through the Junior Achievement Economics for Success program. In all, 3M officials say their volunteers will have reached 2,500 kids.

The idea behind the program, which will be presented by two-person teams of volunteers in every St. Paul middle school and junior high, is to dig into personal finance and education and career options and help students see the value of staying in school. Buckley, who was born into a Sheffield, England, family that struggled financially, really seemed to connect with the kids.

They were fascinated by his accent. "Yeah, I like it too," he said. "It gets people to cut me some slack they wouldn't otherwise."

They wanted to know about his workday. He gets up at 4 a.m., reads the day's news and is in the office by 6 a.m. A day of meetings and other CEO stuff later, he's home with his family by 6 p.m., helping his kids with their homework.

They wanted to know what he did before becoming the boss. He was a chemical engineer who liked to invent stuff. But, no, he didn't invent Post-It notes or Scotch tape.

And what, they wanted to know, is his favorite place to have traveled in the world? "New Zealand," he said. "It has great fishing there. And I love to fish."

On the tables in front of the students were board games, also part of the Junior Achievement curriculum. Again, the idea is to show kids choices -- and the connection between their life options and education. It's very hands-on, officials said. But that's also the idea behind Junior Achievement, a longtime program that connects K-12 students with local business people to teach children how to make and manage money.

Afterward, Buckley was asked what he thinks business gets out of such efforts. 3M Co., for one, is nurturing several business-school partnerships in St. Paul alone. Some business leaders have been critical of a seemingly small return on such investments.

Buckley, however, scoffed at the idea of demanding a clearcut return for working with kids.

"Even if we only affect one child, we've made a difference," he said. "This is one of those things in life where it doesn't matter to me if there is a scorecard."

James Walsh • 651-298-1541