A sister company to ProTeach Publications, Aim for Eleven was founded by Frank Trujillo in the year 2000, just as dawn of an exciting, new day lingered on the horizon.  At the same time, Frank Trujillo, Tony Gulizia, Bruce Bolin and several others were working rather in a frenzy, laying down tracks for the compact disc album styled What Happened to Love?  As it happens, work on the album served to spur development of Aim for Eleven both as label and publishing and distribution network, a fledgling company entailing a broader, more generally diverse spectrum of impact than ProTeach Publications.  Aim for Eleven will increasingly focus its attention on issues and ideas relevant to individuals throughout the world, people from all walks of life, not only those having a specific connection to formal education. 

 
Aim for Eleven’s mission is, in a variety of ways, to bring home the important point that all of us in the world need to aim higher than our present goal; that we must increasingly assure we spend quality time with our children, at helping them to get the best education possible, at raising them to be the best they can be; that we must take aim at improving ourselves mentally, physically, and spiritually.

 ("Frankie" with brother, David Monticello, New Mexico. Circa 1954)

With much of today’s society embracing carelessly the ephemeral and mundane—things such as our fixation on self-gratification, our addiction to “getting ahead in the world,” our absorption with professional sports and, increasingly, our infatuation with the lifestyles of the rich and famous, not to mention our ever-expanding obsession with intimately knowing every facet, every detail, every everything concerning the lives of star athletes and entertainers—there is a desperate need for something else, something different.  There is a desperate need for us to confront the truth.  Too many of us find ourselves caught in the unfortunate, endless, mindless pursuit of material things.  Too many of us are caught up in the consuming attachment to self.  And all of this is happening at the very time that many, many children in our country—to many of them—are being improperly nurtured, are uncaringly raised, and at a time that television, video games, the World Wrestling Federation, the streets, and the child’s peer group each are being increasing allowed to consume a larger and larger fraction of what should be a parental responsibility for the growth and development of a given child.

In launching Aim for Eleven, it has been Dr. Trujillo’s sincere hope and desire to rip through the superficiality of “society as it is” and reach a world of people who, deep down at core, can and do care.  His conviction is that we must all work together if we are to alleviate many of society’s problems and, in essence, continue the developmental work our forbears began, the ongoing process of building of a bridge to a brighter future. To do so, he contends, we must rekindle an attitude of caring.

            Many will remember, in pop culture, a time when Bo Derek was proclaimed “a perfect 10.”  10, it seems, has always been the standard to which we have grown accustomed to strive.  But now, at every step of the way, it is as if Frank Trujillo is asking us, “Are you content with us always aiming for ten and, more often than not, just hitting an eight…or even a seven.  Why not join me?  We can do better than seven!  C’mon, let’s aim for eleven!”

            Aim for Eleven. It is a metaphor.  It is a company whose mission is all about one thing, and one thing only:  Issuing an ongoing challenge for all of us, each of us, to increase our expectations.