WASHINGTON: Washington business leaders led by Yelm grocer, Hal Wolf, decided it was time to integrate business owners with high school students. They realized that our free enterprise market-based economic system would not survive unless it was reinvigorated with a consistent injection of young entrepreneurs.
At the time, our nation had been deeply divided by the Vietnam War and an anti-establishment, anti-business fervor. Wolf, a state legislator, saw trouble ahead for our way of life.Central Washington University President Jim Brooks shared that fear, and together they launched Washington Business Week in 1975. The Association of Washington Business, our state’s chamber of commerce and manufacturing association, became the sponsor.
The success of any business depends in large part on having skilled, knowledgeable and motivated employees. And motivated employees can use their knowledge, skills and work experience to climb the economic ladder and build a secure future for themselves and their families.To Wolf and Brooks, putting business owners with high school students was a learning opportunity for both and it helped ensure that our way of life would be handed down from generation to generation.
