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Poland Business Week Turns Five
Once a bastion of Communist rule, Poland has become a hub for free enterprise
and a hotbed for American programs like Washington Business Week.
Charles Henry Thomas
Led by Washington state teachers, Poland Business Week has
gained a strong following among Polish high school students
looking to learn more about Western markets and free enterprise.
This year marked the program’s fifth in the former Communistcontrolled country, and judging by the program’s success, the free
market is alive and well in the most unexpected of places.
In August, Gdynia Deputy Mayor Ewa Łowkiel presented AWB President Don C.
Brunell and Washington Business Week Executive Director Steve McGraw with
the city’s awards for education and civic accomplishment, celebrating the fifth
anniversary of Washington Business Week in Poland.
Poland Business Week grew out of a sister city relationship between Seattle and
Gdynia, a city of 250,000 citizens, the Polish American Chamber of Commerce
in Seattle, and Polish students coming to Ellensburg to attend the Washington
Business Week program at Central Washington University.
While it started in Gdynia, Poland Business Week has spread to Boleslawowo,
Gdansk and Minsk Mazowiecki.
Poland Business Week is embraced by city and community leaders. Gdynia
Mayor Wojciech Szczurek wanted to give Polish students the same opportunities
to experience the rewards of the free enterprise system in Poland. In 2009, city
officials worked with then WBW Executive Director Steve Hyer to help establish
the Poland program in Gdynia.
Just as in Washington, the Poland Business Week program continues to grow.
Two years ago, Dan Tompkins, a long-time AWB member from Walla Walla,
started the Advanced Business Week program at Gdynia. It is modeled after the
advanced program that he helped establish in Washington.
AWB member Dan Tompkins (speaking) has been instrumental
in starting the Business Week program in Gdynia.
capitalism sprouts from communist beginnings
In 1975, when Washington Business Week hatched at the Association of
Washington Business, no one imagined it would end up in Communist Poland.
But things are vastly different today and the once-occupied Poland is now free and rapidly becoming a bastion of free enterprise.
Think about it: Washington Business Week started five years before Lech Walesa climbed atop the gate at Gdansk’s Shipyard to
issue 21 demands for better wages and working conditions. Walesa and his fellow shipyard workers captured worldwide attention
and their gutsy actions shook the very foundation of the Communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain.
At the time Polish dictators took their orders from Moscow. They were uncompromising and brutal and most Poles grew up
dodging secret police and thugs who were party snitches.
Capitalism was a forbidden 10-letter word and the Communist party bosses controlled everything. People starved and agriculture
and industrial output was dismal.
Meanwhile, the United States continued to grow and thrive. We fought wars in other places while Americans at home created the
world’s greatest economy and standard of living.
poland’s transformation
When the Berlin Wall came toppling down in 1989, Communism in most of Eastern Europe evaporated as quickly as the
early morning fog on a sunny autumn day.
22 association of washington business