MABLETON - Girl Scout camp took on a greater meaning for five Cobb teens who recently spent five days at Camp Timber Ridge in Mableton learning life lessons from Atlanta-area executive businesswomen.

Camp CEO, sponsored by the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, Inc., was a leadership camp conducted June 7-11. The camp paired 23 high school girls from around Atlanta, many of whom were Girl Scouts, with 23 of Atlanta's top executive women to create mentor and mentee teams. Activities and team-building programs were planned for the groups to help the executives share their life lessons with the teens and help the teens share their life goals and plans with the businesswomen.

"I was so impressed with the girls," said Elizabeth Gill, 58, owner of Express Employment Professionals in Buckhead. "I will treasure that forever because I was just so impressed that they were so involved, that they knew at 14 or 15 or 16 they had their whole life planned out. They had direction in their life. They inspired me because they had goals."

Gill was paired with rising freshman Veronica Gorenshtey, 14, who will attend Pope High School in the fall. Although Gorenshtey is not a Girl Scout, she has been attending Camp Timber Ridge since she was 8 years old and works there now in the kitchen. Originally from Ukraine, Gorenshtey came to the U.S. with her parents as a young child and aspires to be a doctor.

"Veronica, her family came over from the Ukraine and she was really an interesting girl," Gill said. "Here's a little girl who knows she wants to be a pediatrician, and I have no doubt she will be a pediatrician."

Although Gorenshtey said she was originally disappointed she was not paired with a mentor who worked in medicine, she quickly realized how much she could learn from Gill and the other mentors, no matter what their professions were.

"It's not really what you're profession is, it's just the advice that she gave that really mattered," Gorenshtey said. "How I related to her was that she never gives up, because her job is not really easy."

One of Gill and Gorenshtey's favorite activities of the week was a speed-networking event in which all of the mentors and girls got to meet one another in a two-minute, interview-type forum.

"I thought that was really interesting because in two minutes I felt like I learned so much interesting stuff about all of the CEOs," Gorenshtey said.

Jessica Martinez, a Girl Scout involved in the camp said she really enjoyed an activity in which she mapped out her goals and explained to her mentor, Kate Atwood, founder of Kate's Club, what she was doing to work toward those goals. Martinez, 14, a rising sophomore at Lassiter High School, aspires to be a school counselor. She said she related to Atwood's story since she owns a nonprofit organization based in Midtown that mentors children who have lost a parent from cancer.

"One thing I learned from her was that no matter what happens, we can still be successful," Martinez said. "And to try to learn from things that have happened to us, try to make sense of things."

Atwood said she also learned from Martinez and the other girls at Camp CEO.

"Camp CEO was just that, it was that back and forth with both learning and teaching," Atwood said. "There is so much to come from these young girls that has not been displayed yet and it's important for us to support them for what they want to do. There is not a greater gift that you can give somebody than that belief in that somebody."

Both Martinez and Gorenshtey and their mentors said they plan on keeping in touch after camp. A reunion has been planned in August for the girls and their mentors, Atwood said, and she plans to attend. Gill said she has already signed up for Camp CEO again next year.

"I had never heard anything like this before. It's unique and innovative," Atwood said. "I think Girl Scouts really is about leadership and is about girls being given the opportunity to have a voice in their community, and to give back. I think that's a message that needs to be communicated more."

The other Cobb girls who attended included Claudia Garcia, a sophomore at Marietta High School who was paired with Jean Holloway, executive vice president of Bank of North Georgia; Jnae Winns, a Campbell High School student who was paired with Barbara Evans, chief financial officer of Thomas Concrete of Georgia, Inc.; and Marietta High School student Brunna deOliviera, who was paired with Carrie Kurlander, vice president of communications at Southern Company.