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Coffee shop provides youth with skills to become employable
There are about a half-dozen people in the coffee shop, café and used bookstore — two women having a meeting, a student doing some studying, one or two people browsing the books, a mother and child playing in the games area at the back.
At the counter is Rachel Braun, making a coffee for a customer. The 14-year-old isn’t an employee. She’s a volunteer.
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Former tech executive urges students to take values-based approach to business.
Christians in business must realize that achieving success is only the first of two important journeys in life, says the former chief operating officer of the company that created the smart phone.
Life’s first journey is building a career and becoming a growth junkie, committed to life-long learning, Don Morrison said in a speech to students at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, ON.
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Economic development programs that focus on women’s needs can have a major positive impact on the lives of the clients, their families and their communities.
So says Su Sandar Koe, who works as gender co-ordinator for MEDA’s Improving Market Opportunities for Women (IMOW) project in Myanmar. While most economic development programs are not women focussed, IMOW is.
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Achieving equity may require understanding of, and consideration of the concept of intersectionality.
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Women are far from being treated as equals in Ghana.
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During the Greater Opportunities for Rural Women (GROW) project in Ghana, MEDA realized it needed to engage men beyond their role as gatekeepers, turning them into allies in gender awareness raising. It also needed to ensure that men did not feel left behind by development efforts.
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Jordanian woman becomes an entrepreneur with her husband's support
As Published in The Marketplace Magazine
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Members of environment committee learn about the challenges facing farmer clients
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B.C. event planner handles behind the scenes tasks at MEDA conventions
Ann-Michele Ewert works hard to be low-profile.
Not that the gregarious event planner is unhappy to chat.
It’s just that Ewert, who has helped organize MEDA’s annual Business as A Calling convention for 20 years, measures success by how well she can blend in. “If you do your job well, people don’t notice,” she says.
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Numbers and Tasks
The number of women farmers has tripled since the 1970s. Now, according to the US Department of Agriculture, women make up just under one third of all farmers. More than a third of farm ground is owned by women and 62.7 million acres are farmed by women principal operators, according to the last US Census of Agriculture.
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Manitoba farm boy beats the odds to
become a professional race car driver
As Published in The Marketplace magazine
David Richert finds it easy to connect his racing career with his Christian faith.
Given the odds against him succeeding in professional auto racing, he has no other explanation for the past 16 years.
David Richert is passionate about racing as a calling
“Racing and God intersected with each other, in the sense that God used racing as a tool for me to have an opportunity to experience him for myself, and how he operates in the world around me,” Richert told an audience who attended a workshop about his life story at MEDA’s annual Business as a Calling convention.
As a child who grew up collecting eggs on his family’s farm south of Winnipeg, Man., he had no interest in motorized vehicles. When he finally discovered racing at the age of 20, he was told that he was both too old and too tall to be a race car driver.
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Turnaround expert applies business lessons
to succeeding in life
As Published in The Marketplace magazine
For all his business adventures, Greg Brenneman thinks of personal relationships when asked about his biggest regret.
“In life, my biggest failure was probably not doubling down on my faith (earlier),” Brenneman told MEDA’s annual convention in Indianapolis.
Greg Brenneman signs copies of his best-selling book
Brenneman, executive chair of private equity firm CCMP Capital, is a leading business turnaround expert. He has served in senior roles at prominent US businesses, including Burger King, PWC Consulting and Continental Airlines.
A Hesston, Kan. native, he wrote the best-selling book, Right Away & All At Once: Five Steps to Transform Your Business and Enrich Your Life.
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Female agri-food entrepreneurs share tales from the trenches
As Published in The Marketplace magazine
Female entrepreneurs are making great strides in raising living standards for farmers around the world, but still face challenges getting financing and other resources to expand.
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Indiana businessman adapts to make his trailer firm
more efficient after losing a business
As Published in The Marketplace magazine
Eleven years ago, Steve Brenneman had two thriving businesses.
After starting Aluminum Trailer Company in 1999, he bought a small door manufacturing firm in Napanee, Ind.
Steve Brenneman adopted lean production methods to help his trailer manufacturing firm grow
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Souderton restaurant builds relationships
As Published in The Marketplace magazine
By Eileen R. Kinch
Souderton, PA — When Pam and Andy Brunner went into the restaurant business 17 years ago, they did so for a simple reason: they wanted to work for themselves.
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Young Kansas entrepreneurs share stories of
lessons learned in building their businesses.
As Published in The Marketplace magazine
By Susan Miller
Yoder, Kan. — Many youths get their first entrepreneurial experience by mowing lawns. However Shane Iwashige, now in his early 30s, has reversed the pattern. After working on several unrelated small businesses — cutting firewood, raising dogs and running a small farm — he started investing in real estate and offering home services to people in the Hutchinson, Kan. area.
Shane IwashigeIn July 2018 he added lawn mowing, edging and landscaping services to the collection of small companies he founded under The Rock Group. Since late summer and autumn rains kept unirrigated lawns green until after the first snowfall in mid-October, Iwashige spent many work hours mowing grass on the 170 properties he manages.