Join host Priscilla Rahn as she delves into an enlightening conversation with Jy Maze, co-founder and CEO of Maze Freight Solutions. Discover how Jy’s passion for education is reshaping the future of American youth through innovative summer programs. These initiatives aim to equip young individuals with real-world skills, preparing them for a rapidly changing job market dominated by technology and automation. Explore how Excalibur Classical Academy and Maze Foundation for Kids are nurturing servant leaders and future entrepreneurs.
Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. She’s a master educator and author leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
SPEAKER 03 :
well hello everybody welcome to restoring education in america i’m your host priscilla rahn and i’m so excited that you’ve decided to join the conversation today i cannot stop talking about this new school that’s opening this fall excalibur classical academy the reason why i’m so excited is because i am the headmaster and i’m i feel like i’m building the school of my dreams Our mission and vision is restoring America’s heritage by developing servant leaders who are keepers and defenders of the principles of freedom for which our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. We’re opening K through three. So if you have little itty bitties who are starting school, we want you to come take a tour of I’ll be doing information sessions. And also, if you’re looking to teach at a classical school, we’d love for you to go to our website, ExcaliburClassicalAcademy.org, submit your resume. But yeah, we’re opening in Centennial, so please take a look. You know, there’s a reason why… parents are engaging in school choice. There are so many options out there and there are so many soft skills that aren’t being taught anymore in the public education system. But I have a special guest that I’m going to bring onto the stage and we’re going to have a great conversation about education and the wonderful work that she is doing. Welcome fellow Project 21 ambassador Jy Maze. Hi Jy.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi, how are you? I’m so excited to be here today.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m great and I’m so excited that we are having this conversation. Before we get too far into the conversation though, I’m going to share your bio with our listeners.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
So Jy Maze earned her BA in business from National American University and is the co-founder and CEO of Mays Freight Solutions Incorporated. And a national award-winning supply chain and logistics business headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas. Jy Maze is passionate about preparing the next generation for leadership and economic independence. Her greatest impact is reflected in her commitment to youth development and restoring practical values-based education in America. As co-trustee of May’s Foundation for Kids, Jy leads efforts to teach young people leadership, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and character development. Through hands-on programs and mentorship, the foundation equips students with real-world skills, personal responsibility, and the confidence to pursue ownership in business and life, advancing her mission to strengthen families, communities, and the future of American education. Talk about power lady. How do you do it all?
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m passionate. I’m passionate. I grew up watching some of my schoolmates and their children who came after them just don’t know what to do with their lives. They can’t even read, you understand, in their 20s. And I have one of my nephews who came to me and said, do I have to go to college, Auntie Jy? I said, no. I said, I know truck drivers that make more than executives at Walmart. So no, you don’t. And so what that did was that inspired my husband and I to open up and create something where kids can get hands on learning. I personally believe when kids are stuck in a room for eight hours, They’re bored. And it’s like a prison. Visualization equals stimulation to me. And it makes them be more eager to learn when they can actually see it. So my husband and I opened up our engineering supply chain technology and finance organization where we want to teach children these skills. These skills are missing. I teach the children that once you become a millionaire, you have to know how to manage that money that you’re going to make. And so we really horn in on the engineering side and the tech side because we all know automation is going to rid a lot of jobs. I’m in the sector. I’m in the tech sector. I’m in the logistics sector. I’m in the trucking sector. My husband and I was traveling one day and we saw a McDonald’s that was fully ran by automation. So remember, I’m 45 years old. When I was growing up at 16, McDonald’s was the lick. That’s where you went to get your job. I was 16 years old. That starting point is get ready to leave, Priscilla. so my husband and i felt like especially for my nephews we need to get them prepared because automation is getting ready to wipe out a lot of jobs and what they need to be thinking about is yes artificial technology in robotics but which one are you going are you going to be the one that operates are you going to be the one that builds the robots are you going to be the one that designs the robots you’re going to manufacture the robots are you going to manage the robots Which one? And so what we do is we take the kids in the summer, it’s our summer program, and we let them see how the world is made and ran. from agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, showing them how the food gets from the farm to the table. We teach them technology. And we also, we have tech teachers who teaches AI so they can be ahead of the game. We call this specialized knowledge. We’re also preparing the children. No one knows about trust and foundations. We’re preparing them for the future ahead. That’s what we’re preparing them for.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s amazing. OK, so very few people are able to articulate in depth, just like you’re articulating the next generation’s jobs, because that’s always what we’re trying to figure out as teachers. Like, what are the jobs of the future? We’ll always say we’re preparing you for the jobs that don’t exist yet. But it sounds like you are well ahead of the next 10, 20, 30 years based on what you see now.
SPEAKER 02 :
so i i’ve never met anybody who’s been deep in the uh freight industry tell me a little how did you get into that industry so it started oh man it’ll be we’re 18 years now i’ve been in the freight industry for 18 it’s going to be 20 years soon but i’ve always known about the trucking industry you know i’ve got family members who own trucks but i’ve never known about who runs the machine what’s running behind the the truck who is controlling that So there’s a company that a girlfriend of mine called me and I was in corporate America. And she says, I found the company for us. I said, okay. She’s like, you’re going to love it. The CEO is great. And he’s very family oriented. He believes in God, family freedom. Okay. And he believes in work life balance. She said, you’re going to love it. So I said, okay. So I went to interview and I just wanted to get, she took me to one of their, is it holiday parties or one of their team parties, team building parties. And I fell in love. I said, I’ve got to work here. So I went through the interview process and I told her, I said, whatever it takes, I need to get into this company. Even if it’s customer service, I’ll take it. Well, I got in there and the first day of training, the trainer said, this is a truck and this is how this gets from here to here. And here are all the different trucks. And this is how much money you can make controlling freight. And I saw the number and I first, I was in customer service. And so I said, I wonder how much these sales guys make. Now we know sales is unlimited. They don’t really push sales as a career. Okay. But sales has a limited cap, a lot of it. And once I got into the company, I started seeing people roll up with Mercedes. And I said, well, who is that rolling into Mercedes? And how did they get that Mercedes? And they said, oh, well, those are all of the top sales reps. I said, oh, okay, well, let me find out. So about six months in, I asked to be transferred to a different department. I did. And I’m gonna give people a tip here. When you want something, don’t be afraid to ask. OK, if your management won’t give it to you, go to your C-suites, befriend the CEO, make friends with your C-suite execs. I tell people, don’t be afraid of it. They’re just humans and people just like us. So what I did when I wanted to move up, I went to the CEO and I said, I want to be like you. What do I need to do? And the first thing he said was, have you ever done a SWOT analysis? So I had never heard of it. I’m green to all of this. But I asked the CEO and then I became very, very cool with the CEO. And I asked the CEO, I said, how can I be like you? I want to do this. And he took me under his wing just because I asked. People don’t know the power of asking. A lot of people are scared of rejection, but it’s either yes or no.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s smart. Okay, so I wrote a book. You can see right here, Restoring Education in America. I have a chapter about mentorship and finding a great mentor. And the fact that you took the initiative to find someone, ask them to be your mentor, and they took you on. It says a lot.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, because that’s how you’re going to learn. I enjoy college. I’m going to be honest with you. I love education, and I enjoy college to a degree. But there’s some things that are just irrelevant, right? You understand? And then there’s some things that you can pay a business coach less amount of money than college. And that business coach will get you up to speed to where you’re a successful entrepreneur. So there are options. There are options. And I believe in hands on learning more like apprenticeships, internships. Because, again, being stuck in the classroom, you’re not really learning anything. You’re learning, but you’re not getting real world experiences. There’s a show I used to watch called The Librarian. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but they’re adventurous and they do, you know, they always archaeological digs and they’re looking for this and that or You know, they’re searching for a Bible, archaeological digs, things like that. One of the main archaeologists, he was teaching in a university and he told the students, he says, yes, you’re great at archaeology here, but you’ll never know what it’s like unless you get outside of the classroom. Because outside of the classroom is where the real world is. It’s real world learning. And my daughter came to me today. She said, mom, I’m so excited about the ESTF program this summer. And she’s nine. And I said, you are? She said, yes. And all of our friends are excited. So the old, the past students, they’ve called to make sure we’re having it this summer. OK, they want to make sure we’re having it because I’ve got two that are getting ready to go into the trucking industry. And because they saw what it was like and they saw the freedom and they saw the money, they decided, OK, I don’t think I want to go to college route, but I’m going to go the trucking route. So we’ve got two getting ready to enter CDL school, which we also offer scholarships through our program. We have one going into engineering school and we’ve got one applying for MIT.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow. Well, Jy, OK, so you start this amazing company. You get a mentor. You start your company. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Sorry. You said, how did I get the job? I started talking about education again because that’s on my mind. So here let me let me fast forward. So I got a mentor and I reached in about four years of the company. I was top 10 sales rep. Okay. Out of a thousand sales reps, a thousand on the team, I did. And one day it hit me. I looked around and I did not see much representation for African-Americans nor women. So I had a light bulb moment to said, you should open your own company for these opportunities here. So you can, my mind was, I can teach young men to pull up their pants, stop slinging drugs, and I can teach you how to run the world controlling trade in freight. That was my light bulb moment. That is my why. And so that’s how Maze Freight got started. And so since that day that we opened, April 22nd, actually, yeah, April, what is it? Yeah, April 21st, the day before my husband’s birthday, because he said for his birthday, he wanted me to get my business license. That’s pretty encouraging, right? And so we did, and we were supposed to launch in June, but things sped up and I had to immediately get a customer. It was about a month later that we had our first customer. And in six months we generated 130,000 in revenue. which is quick. And I will tell people this too. When you do go into business, my mentor told me, one of my mentors told me grow slow and stay in control. And I had to learn that because yes, we grew quickly revenue wise in the first two years, but Priscilla, I did not know how to handle the growth. And that’s where the education piece comes into play. And so what I had to do is hit the reset button We lost a lot of customers, COVID hit, all of our customers went away, which COVID was kind of a blessing in disguise because we had to hit the reset button, start all over, but COVID gave me a chance to hit the books. I had to learn how to balance. I had to learn balance sheets, profit and loss statements, how to read those. I had to learn how to read financial statements. A lot of people don’t know how to read financial statements. And because of that, my why came into the children. At this point, I’m, what, 40? No, 38. And I was upset that I didn’t know how to read financial statements at 37 years old. It was foreign to me. What does all these numbers mean? I’m so used to working for someone. You know, someone else does this. Now it’s my turn and I don’t understand this. And that’s what put the light bulb on that I want to teach the children this early.
SPEAKER 03 :
So fast forward to your foundation. You have this epiphany that you want to teach children. Talk about what your school does. How often do children meet? Give me kind of the nuts and bolts.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, great. So it’s a summer program between June and July, and we meet every Friday. What we do is we have a teacher during the first half of the day. We take them to fancy restaurants for lunch so they get to learn English. how to eat in fancy restaurants, how to be elegant. We teach them all of that and how to be respectful in a restaurant. And then the second half of the day, they’re on a tour, whether it’s a manufacturing tour, whether it’s worlds of fun, which is a theme part around here. And they’re showing how roller coasters are engineered. There’s different teachers that come in. We take them to shop labs. Remember shop in school? Oh, yeah. Mm hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
a lot of them don’t do that anymore and those are real life skills home economics i would come to work as a young teacher and have a student change my oil while i’m teaching for free because they were learning how to change oil we don’t do that anymore we don’t do that anymore we need real life skills
SPEAKER 02 :
And so that’s what that’s what got me. And I realized that a lot of children can’t read even at the eighth, ninth grade level, sixth, seventh and fifth. And so what my husband and I would do is even though we knew that we would still do ministry on the road, you know, where we’re going to the first year, we’d have spelling bees. I mean, you know, spelling quizzes or we do math and things like that to try speed, speed spelling, you know, with the students so we can help them get better. So they love it. And here’s one at the end of every Friday, because it’s on Fridays, every Friday through June and July. And we do take sponsorships and we’re asking for 400 a child because we provide transportation, lunch, all of their learning, all of their engineering kits. We provide all of that. At the end of the day, we ended with fishing because we teach them how to fish for success, but you also have to fish in life to be able to eat. So The parents love it. The kids know how to feed themselves, okay? Because all of them are professional fishers at this point. We’re going on the third year, so we have fishing contests. And whoever catches the most fish, you know, it’s a catch and release, but whoever catches the most fish, they win the contest. So there’s just life skills. There’s education. There’s future, you know, looking future forward for what’s getting ready to come with automation. And that’s where our heart is.
SPEAKER 03 :
That is so beautiful. So what are the age groups of the children that come to your camps?
SPEAKER 02 :
Eight to 18. Eight to 18, yes. Yeah, we start them early. My daughter, she’s a firecracker. She is.
SPEAKER 03 :
So do you have adult instructors or is it just you and your husband?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, we have volunteers. We have volunteers. I don’t know if you know Michael Austin.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, wow. Yeah, Michael’s amazing.
SPEAKER 02 :
He’s the finance teacher.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, I was going to say, you’ve got a gold mine in Michael Austin. Yes, yes. He’s so smart. He is so smart. And so humble too. And when he talks about stuff, I can understand. I felt smart just listening to him talk.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. He’s fine as for dummies to me. He really, really is. And so, and even like this year, we’re getting everyone Thomas Sowell books. you know, so they could understand economics. Last year, we sent books home, how to manage money. We sent them for children and the parents, excuse me, a lot of parents came to the class when Michael was teaching so they could learn economics.
SPEAKER 03 :
I want to come to your class. You’re going to have to beam me in for your classes, Jay.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I’m telling you, you can zoom right on in. So yeah, Michael’s teaching him economics. He’s teaching him inflation. He’s teaching them real world skills. They don’t get this. They don’t get this. And I call it specialized knowledge. What’s learned outside of the classroom. Right. This is what they need. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I would imagine as a business owner that you believe in capitalism and free market. Have you always been a conservative or did that change once you became a business owner?
SPEAKER 02 :
I grew up in church. So my parents are pastors. So I’ve always lived a conservative life. I’ll tell you what story, though. When I became conservative, I met, there was a guy friend years ago, years ago, and I met his father. His father was a business owner, very successful, prominent black guy here in Kansas City, Missouri. All of his friends were prominent. He used to work at the state capitol here and he owned huge insurance firms. And one day he told me, because I was wondering, I was like, your dad into politics because you know i started going to the state capitol he said yeah and i said what he said oh my dad is republican we’re republicans and it threw me for a second but my mother and my family has always been conservative they never we never discussed politics in our home our home when my father and mother politics was never discussed My father just, they didn’t believe in racism. My father and mother just believe that there’s rotten people in the world, but they didn’t believe that, I don’t know, for some reason in my dad’s mind, it was blocked that people can change. And a lot of people grow up with these beliefs. They’re taught these beliefs. So he doesn’t believe everyone is born with racism. My father was blind. So he was, you know, he’s talking from a blind man where character only spoke. So that’s how we grew up. But he told me, this older man told me, he said, listen, daughter. I said, yes, sir. He said, when a Republican is in office, the economy is up, wealth is up, commodity is up. He said, but when a Democrat is in office, true story, he said, theft and poverty is up. And I had to understand that. I said, well, what does he mean poverty? And the guy that I, his son said, well, look at all the handouts they give. They give so many handouts. You become dependent that you don’t go out and you don’t do anything for yourself. And so now you’re stuck with them and you only get so much money a month. So that’s how you have to live. That’s creating poverty. And so since that time I was 21 years old, I’ve been on a conservative path. Now, I’m going to finish really quickly. But it took 2020, actually, no, not 2020, 2016 to really open my eyes to what was happening. Because even though I was conservative, I wasn’t paying attention, Priscilla, at all. 16 came around and I saw what was happening with the current president. And my husband and I started to get involved here in Kansas in the political realm. And so we could be examples to people that, you know, yes, we are conservative, but, you know, people that say, keep your vote a secret, but we don’t keep it a secret because we want to wake everyone else up. That’s where we are.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and that’s why you and I are both Project 21 ambassadors using our voices to talk about these issues like the SAVE Act where people are calling you and I, well, they’re not calling, well, they’re calling me names. I don’t know what they’re calling you. I got called a white supremacist and a fascist and a troll.
SPEAKER 02 :
And a Nazi. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, because people operate in a deficit mindset where they think like, oh, black people can’t access an ID or married women because we have to take that extra step to change our last name. And I said, I happily changed my last name when I married my husband. I went straight to all the different agencies and took my happy little marriage license and changed my last name on everything. And so it is not a burden for married women to take a quote unquote extra step. But let’s talk a little bit about your faith, sis. How do you embed your faith in your business? Because I think a lot of people in the business world would say, oh, don’t talk about your faith. But how do you embed your faith in the work that you do?
SPEAKER 02 :
Our faith controls the company. Integrity. And it’s a good thing that all of our leadership, we’re all on one accord when it comes down to the laws of God. if you ever get a chance there’s uh it’s called 613 laws of noah okay noah laws okay i know it seems like scary because it says 613 but they’re really saying the same thing but what i want you to do is when you google it the 613 noah laws scroll down and it tells you how to run your business through the laws of god people need to read that because it talks about no usury You understand? No getting over. Keeping your word. How to treat your employees. How to treat people who have helped you build the business. Don’t be greedy. And so all of these attributes, everything that’s in that law of God, we put it into the company. And God has blessed our company tremendously. I like to tell people there’s angels everywhere. that are covering our freight. Because I don’t just move regular freight. We don’t move regular freight. We move oversized, heavy.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re in the business of import and export. Don’t tell anybody what you do.
SPEAKER 02 :
And so God is with us. You understand what I’m saying? There’s times this stuff is on that boat. Things happen. He protects everything. So God is with us. And so we give all glory to God. We’re Sabbath keepers. So we shut down from Friday night to Saturday night. Even the business, it shuts down.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, if it’s good enough for Chick-fil-A, it’s good enough for you, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
There it is. So that’s what we do. And you see Chick-fil-A does it too.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, yes. Yes. So-
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that’s what we do.
SPEAKER 03 :
That is amazing. Jy, I’m looking at the time we have to land our plane. But before we go, tell everybody what is the website for your foundation in case somebody wants to support what you’re doing?
SPEAKER 02 :
Please. Yes, it’s www.mazefoundationforkids.com. I’m giving the email address, girl. Anyway, it’s mazefoundation.com. mazefoundation.com. That is our education portion. And then we also host a coat drive every year. And that’s where we give supplies, warm clothing supplies and new coats. Everything is brand new. We don’t do anything used. We hand those out all over the community in the winter.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that is beautiful. I am so glad we had this time together. We’ll have to do a part two because I know we barely just started talking about all of this wonderful knowledge. To my listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue, and speak truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Rahn. Visit PriscillaRahn.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.
