Business helps students, tutors step into success

By Jenn Director Knudsen

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Inspired by his dad’s entrepreneurial spirit, Andrew Cogen aspired to run his own company, but with an additional goal: to help others.

“You can make a living and help people at the same time,” Cogen, 31, said of his one-man tutor-student placement business. “It’s kind of a rewarding way to be making a living.”

Cogen launched Stepping Stone Tutors exactly four years ago. At the time, he toiled on his business plan and increasing the company’s services from his bedroom in a Pacific Beach, Calif., apartment.

Just last summer, he and wife, Allison (Amiton) Cogen of Portland and a long-time Congregation Beth Israel member, picked up from Southern California and moved to Bend.

Stepping Stone Tutors grew along with Cogen’s lodgings; he now works from an office inside the couple’s craftsman-style home.

A former marketing professional, Cogen knew he wanted to be his own boss. But of what?

Allison, 30, was his light bulb. Formerly a middle- and high-school teacher, administrator and tutor herself, she one day mentioned how tough it is for tutors to find steady work and for students to find just the right tutor.

Cogen canvassed the San Diego area; he found not one business that served as a tutor-tutee warehouse.

Instead, he found mainly center-based tutoring services. And yet he recognized students’ (and, often, their parents’) desire to have instructors come into their homes for extra help.

Cogen also noted most students sought additional assistance on a given unit, rather than in a full course.

Armed with this knowledge and the ability to work 13-hour days, months on end, Cogen established a price point for customers; a background-check system for tutors; an in-house billing structure; a repertoire of 40 academic subjects; and, of course, a Web presence.

And then, “I kind of waited for someone to call,” he said in a phone interview from his home office.

And call (and email) they did: Cogen now manages 120 tutors, teaching 20 different subjects to 80 student customers, ranging in age from 4 years old to adult.

Stepping Stone Tutors has a presence in 10 cities throughout the West, and Cogen plans to expand his tutor-tutee pairings into Dallas and Las Vegas.

“It’s mostly a matter of time; I’m just one person,” reminded Cogen, who soon will be even busier as he and Allison welcome their first child, a son due before winter’s end.

Certified teacher Jacqueline Mitzel of Oregon City has more than 25 years’ classroom experience. When her daughter’s health condition required more of Mitzel’s time, the teacher cut back to subbing in the public schools and then to tutoring.

She’d once tutored in a Sylvan Learning Center but always preferred working one-on-one with students, rather than in a group or classroom setting.

With 1,100 centers nationwide and 15 here in Southwest Washington and Oregon alone, Sylvan Learning Centers clearly meet many students’ needs, explained Cliff Crawford, executive director and owner of three local franchises.

Classroom setting, diagnostic evaluations, regular parent-tutor conferences, guaranteed improvement, standardized-test prep courses and other features all appeal to a wide range of students and their instructors, according to Crawford.

But not to everyone.

“I think they do a great job,” Mitzel said of Sylvan Learning Centers’ structure and philosophy. “It’s just not my style.”

But Stepping Stone Tutors is. Mitzel responded last spring to Cogen’s ad on craigslist.org and soon he hired her.

Cogen’s business handles finding students for Mitzel, billing, payment and promotion.

“It makes it a lot easier for me,” said Mitzel, who has helped Wilsonville High School freshman Madison Ries recover from a flunking grade in math to consistently earning As and Bs.

“It’s really nice having her at my house,” Ries, 15, said of her tutor in an interview. Ries added she felt too “intimidated” being tutored in a public setting.

“[At-home tutoring] just fit a lot better with her schedule,” said mom, Barbara Ries. “[Jacqueline] is just a fabulous tutor,” who also helped Madison with study skills.

Ries is recommending Jacqueline—along with Stepping Stone Tutors—to her sister.  

Stepping Stone Tutors

Owner: Andrew Cogen, Bend
Tutors’ credentials: Must be college graduate, preferably with a master’s or Ph.D. and have at least three years’ teaching or tutoring experience
Cost per hour: $15 to $30, depending on a tutor’s experience and location
Most-popular subjects: math, science
Least-popular subject: French
For more information: steppingstonetutors.com, email Cogen directly at info@steppingstonetutors.com or call 1-888-303-8088