washington business brian forth: I had a wonderful boss after I stopped teaching in the Bay Area and she was someone who was extremely intelligent and ran a technology company made up predominantly of teachers and people who were interested in education from a very value-centric approach. She was somebody who always cared about the person first before the bottom line and made it so it was enjoyable to do extra things for her and the organization. It made you not want to let her down and do great things for the company. The way I run SiteCrafting is directly tied to the way she ran the company. From my perspective, it’ s important to take care of people first and value the commitment they are giving and give that equal commitment to them.
AWB Executive Committee member Brian Forth, owner of SiteCrafting in Tacoma, shakes hands with Sen. Patty Murray during a 2016 meeting between the U. S. senator and AWB leaders.
jack lamb: As a mentee, I worked under some, in my opinion, world-famous brewers. One is Christian Ettinger of Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Ore. Also, working for Will Kemper at Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen. These guys, I mean, I was starstruck. The way they wanted me to succeed in their same industry was just amazing. All I could think about was that I was going to go to this guy and he’ s not going to tell me anything, he’ s just going to roll his eyes, pat me on the head and say,‘ That’ s cute, you’ re 24 years old, you don’ t know what you’ re talking about.’ Well, I didn’ t know what I was talking about but I was trying, and they saw that.
As a mentor, it’ s been fun working with Western Washington University. They’ re just right up the block a half a mile away from the brewery. Every quarter we get about six to eight group projects that come through the brewery. That has been a lot of fun. My favorite thing to do is to go to the classrooms and speak. wayne j. martin: In the late 1980s, at the national lab( PNNL) as an African-American. In the area of science … there were very few black folks. I started noticing it when I started giving papers and going to conferences. At the lab there was probably not more than 100 black individuals in the organization at any given time, from janitors to scientists.
Dr. William Wiley became the lab director. I knew of him, obviously. I was a lowly scientist. One day my manager came to my office and said,‘ Wayne, Dr. Wiley called our office and wants to meet with you.’ They gave me a meeting time.
I go to the office, wearing my best stuff, sport coat and tie. I go to his office. I’ m kind of concerned.
He’ s sitting behind his desk. He’ s got reading glasses on, you know, where you wear them halfway down your nose. He looks over his glasses and goes,‘ You’ re probably wondering why I wanted to see you.’
I say,‘ To be accurate, yeah, I’ m wondering.’
He says,‘ Well, brother, how many of us do you see around here?’‘ Well, not many sir.’‘ I’ m getting reports about you. You’ re doing a good job. So, this conversation we’ re going to have is about what’ s your plans.’‘ I plan on working, doing my science.’‘ No, what’ s your future plans? What do you plan to do with your career here?’
That was the start. He said if you plan on staying around here, you’ re going nowhere with just a bachelor’ s degree. When you leave here I want you to go down to the joint center for graduate study, look into the programs there and see if there’ s one you can take that starts to lead to a master’ s. I went,‘ well,’ and he said there’ s no‘ well’ about it. There started the relationship. So, I did go back and got into a master’ s program.
He’ s the one that got me into the Black Executive Exchange Program. He had done it. He went to a historically black college, I think in Mississippi. He called the lady that ran the program. He had her come to the laboratory and I met with her. And he said to her I want Wayne to start being involved in, he called it BEEP. We were called BEEP-ers. It was well run and I did that for a number of years.
Eventually, Dr. Wiley said,‘ Let’ s focus on the next big one, that’ s getting your Ph. D.’ A master’ s wasn’ t even on my agenda.
I ended up going back. In the end, the sad part of this is Dr. Wiley died in 1996 and I finished my Ph. D. in 1997.
That relationship was what mapped out the rest of my career. I learned there were things that I can do that I never thought I could come close to doing. cynthia leon: My boss at the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. She was the kind of person that stepped back and allowed me to grow. She allowed me to take on tasks that if I failed or made mistakes was willing to help me understand how to make it better. When people let you grow in your own capacity, I think you learn a lot more than constant micromanaging or constantly telling you how to do something. I think allowing me to grow by myself was probably one of the most effective teaching tools. virginia valdez: In my current role, I feel like part of the reason why I accepted my job here at BBSI is because of my boss, Chris Romm. We actually met prior to this opportunity happening. She was one of those people that I instantly connected with. I shared some values with her. I think she is somebody that I aspire to be like and she is kind of taking me on with not as much experience as someone would have in a position like mine. She believed in me and was able to be a coach to me and she’ s still that for me— a coach.
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