Published May 2004

Nationally, locally JA
is making a difference

This nation’s free-enterprise system has suffered greatly in recent years from ethics failures, criminal acts and random acts of greediness by top executives in some of the nation’s leading businesses.

Fortunately, across the country, Junior Achievement continues to teach students about the real values of the business world that lead to honest financial growth and accomplishments.

In the Puget Sound area, volunteer instructors teach JA economic programs to more than 100,000 elementary and high school students each year, including more than 15,000 students in Snohomish County.

Helping to educate the next generation of business leaders, employees and consumers is rewarding, as well as necessary. Students learn practical, real-world lessons about how to function as adult contributors to America’s free-enterprise system and how to benefit from our nation’s opportunities. They learn how to use checking and banking, how manufacturing and retail businesses operate and how to become productive employees and business owners themselves.

Often recognized nationally as an outstanding business education program for students, Junior Achievement was recently honored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. The group bestowed its highest honor on JA, its Distinguished Service Award, an honor awarded by the group to only one other recipient this year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Locally, Junior Achievement of Puget Sound is building the Northwest’s first Experience JA center near Auburn on land donated by the Boeing Co.

Due to open next spring, the center will present economic education programs for students in two venues, JA Enterprise Village and JA Finance Park, 20 storefronts where students can practice applying lessons about business and enterprise.

Next, Junior Achievement expects to open the region’s second Experience JA center in north King or south Snohomish County as soon as a search for the site is completed, thus opening up new education opportunities for students in this area.

Both teachers and students benefit from these classroom presentations. The programs are so popular that requests for JA programs continue to exceed available classroom volunteers. Even in the remainder of this school year, there are several schools in Snohomish County seeking to add classes. Only a shortage of volunteers from the business community prevents even more students from learning about their country’s free-enterprise system.

There’s also a need for additional members of Junior Achievement’s Snohomish County board of directors, which includes representatives of CityBank, Everett Community College, Goodrich, KeyBank, Boeing, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, State Farm Insurance, Kimberly-Clark and Hascal, Sjoholm & Co., a CPA firm.

The newest board members include Cmdr. Dan Hurley, USN; Marci Larsen, Mukilteo School District; Tracy Olson, Lang Manufacturing; Darryl Plata, Goodrich; Tracy Simpson, Crane Aerospace & Electronics-ELDEC; Pat Sisneros, EvCC; and Tom Theilen, Washington Mutual.

If you’re interested in becoming a board member, instructor or contributing corporate funds as a sponsor of Junior Achievement, contact Jared Johnson, Snohomish County regional director, 206-808-5868, or jared@jaseattle.org.

Editor John Wolcott is a member of the Snohomish County board of Junior Achievement.

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