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October 2017

Message from the President

Another election, another opportunity.

In about a month, we will have a new

Seattle Mayor and a new City Council

Member. We will have at least one new

Port Commissioner and possibly more. We will

once again see new folks in positions of influence

and new initiatives advanced that will have some

impact on business and educational opportunities

in the minority community.

I have stressed over the years that Tabor 100

member businesses must be ready for the

inevitable change that will occur in government as

well as the non-stop cycles that dictate the private

sector. The only way our businesses grow and

thrive is by us being diligent and taking action to

open more doors and convince those making the

decisions that our lives and our businesses matter.

While I urge you and yours to vote, I also urge you

to participate in other ways through volunteer

engagement and financial contributions. You must

then be a part of the governing process by telling

your story to elected and appointed officials and

supporting efforts to enhance equity at every level

of government.

I know that most of you ask, “We are already

working hard and now you want us to become

political?” The answer “yes,” you must become

political, because the success of your

business depends in large part on who is in

office and how they conduct themselves

related to minority business. Tabor 100 will

provide you many opportunities to engage.

Just last month, we hosted the two Seattle

Mayoral candidates for a robust conversation

about issues of concern to minority businesses

and the education of our children. I ask the

following of you:

1) Read the voters pamphlet and vote for the

candidates you believe will best represent your

interest — check out the Tabor September

Mayoral Forum meeting video at Tabor100.org.

The Mayoral Forum begins about 50 minutes

into the meeting.

2) Share your story with State Legislators as

Tabor tackles barriers created by I-200.

3) Serve on our Government Affairs Committee

and make a difference in how government

addresses issues related to minority

businesses.

4) Alert us to issues of concern for your business

that can be addressed by government.

Contact me or the Tabor 100 Administrator and we

can point you in the right direction on any of these

items.

As always, my appeal to you is that you begin

“Shaping Your Destiny.”

September GM Photos

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Legislative Update

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Student Tech Skills

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UW BCG

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“SHAPING OUR DESTINY”

Tabor 100 is an association of entrepreneurs and business advocates who are committed to economic power, educational excellence and

social equity for African-Americans and the community at large.

Get the newsletter online and stay connected through social media!

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September Meeting Photos

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Legislative Update By Sara Stewart

The legislators are finally ready

to talk after the brief break they

were given due to the longest

session in Washington State’s

history!

I met with Representative

Sharon Tomiko-Santos as she

has been the leader for the repeal of I-200 for

almost two decades. We decided we will be

supporting her in her efforts, my job (and with your

help) is to now negotiate the issue with it’s

opponents. We will need to get strong support

from all caucuses and your personal relationships

with legislators will be key. I’ve said this before:

you need to tell them your story. They need to

hear from the community that I-200 effects and a

legislator will always want to hear from their voters

first. You can simply write an email or pick up the

phone. Spend some time getting your stories out

so we are ready to roll in January!

If you are interested in coming to Olympia during

the “Assembly Days” I will be making many

appointments and I would be thankful to have a

small team with me! If you are interested in joining

email me at sara@sarastewartin.com. Assembly

Days are November 13-17, 2017.

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Students need tech skills for more than just jobs — they need it to be good citizens By Jerry Large [Courtesy of the Seattle Times] Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.

You’ve heard many times the complaint that

Washington state is not preparing enough of its

students for high-tech jobs.

Job preparation is a good reason for making a high

-quality math and science education more broadly

available, but there is another increasingly

important reason to move quickly to give young

people a solid grounding in those areas of study.

This country desperately needs a science-literate

citizenry.

Reading is fundamental, the arts are essential and

history is a must. But more than at any time in our

development, an understanding of math and

science has become crucial in our political and

personal lives. And we’re not where we need to be

in preparing Americans with a solid base of

understanding in any of those areas.

I was reminded of that Saturday night at the

Pathfinder Awards banquet at the Museum of Flight

in Seattle. Three men (yep, there is yet another

reason for improving tech education) were being

honored for their contributions to aerospace

development.

For each of the achievers part of the education that

prepared them for success happened outside

traditional school settings, and one of them in

particular has been tenacious about changing

education so hat students won’t have to rely on the

kindness of strangers.

That would be George D. “Pinky” Nelson, a former

astronaut and a champion of education reform who

taught at the University of Washington and

Western Washington University.

Nelson grew up in a small town in Minnesota where

he had good math teachers, but he told the awards

audience he arrived at college not even knowing

what calculus was. He was lucky to have a

roommate who coached him through the math he

needed. Education shouldn’t be a matter of luck.

One of the other award winners, Walt Braithwaite,

grew up in Jamaica and became an engineer and a

Boeing executive. Braithwaite learned a lot of his

science through library books. Among his

achievements at Boeing was his leading role in

making it possible to design an aircraft entirely by

computer.

The other honoree, the late J. Kenneth Higgins,

had good schooling and a family entrenched at

Boeing, but he also taught himself the skills

necessary to become a test pilot.

It’s important to be able to advance your own

education, but everyone should have access to

important basics in the sciences and other areas of

study. Nelson had a stellar career at NASA, then

in 1989 he came to teach at the University of

Washington, where he’d earned his doctorate in

astronomy in 1978. He said he felt good about his

work until he got the feeling former undergraduate

students didn’t remember much of what they’d

been taught.

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS

Duron Jones, Innovation Tribe of America

Shanna Crutchfield, Vanir Construction

Management

Former Boeing executive Walt Braithwaite was honored for his

contributions to aviation at the Pathfinder Awards Gala on

Saturday at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. (Nat Seymour)

Continued on Page 5

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Students need tech skills for more than just jobs — they need it to be good citizens By Jerry Large

Continued from Page 4

“We pretend to teach, and they pretend to learn,”

he told me Wednesday. Because science is partly

about measuring things, he began to measure

retention and found that it was worse than he

thought. But instead of thinking something was

wrong with the students, he took a look at teaching

and concluded methods that developed

generations ago might need tweaking.

He moved to Western Washington University

(WWU) because it trains a lot of K-12 teachers,

and he thought improving their understanding of

math and science and their teaching methods

would be a key to producing generations of

science-literate Americans. Nelson also worked

over the years with K-12 schools, especially in

rural districts.

In 2013, he received a Science Champion

statewide education award, which singled out his

work with Neah Bay schools. Not a single student

at Neah Bay High School had met state 10th-grade

science standards in 2005. After the transformation

in teaching, every student met or exceeded those

standards.

“Students learn what they do,” Nelson told me.

Lectures give the impression you’re covering lots

of material, but not all students are learning it. He

noted that Raisbeck Aviation High School relies on

project-based learning, which is effective for more

students.

In WWU science courses for future elementary

teachers, Nelson said classes are kept small and

there isn’t a single lecture. Students are guided

through scientific work designed to give them a

strong understanding of a few crucial ideas. And

along the way, instructors talk about why they are

teaching in a particular way.

Nelson joined, and eventually led, Project 2061, a

long-term effort to improve science and math

education in the United States. It’s a project of the

American Association for the Advancement of

Science aimed at making it possible for all

Americans to be literate in science, math and

technology. Americans need to understand how

the climate works and how to weigh the risks and

benefits of various technologies, and to understand

how vaccines work. But, Nelson said, focusing on

STEM or on science isn’t enough. “You have to

focus on how you’re teaching everything.” With a

better educated public, we might avoid some of our

problems. But even as knowledge becomes more

important, some Americans are turning their backs

on learning, even on facts.

New Mexico, the state where I grew up, was

considering modifying science-education

standards to leave out mentions of global warming,

evolution and the Earth’s age, among other

changes. The secretary of education promised to

back away from the changes only because

outraged residents of the state spoke out against

the proposed changes at a hearing Monday.

Keeping people ignorant compromises our ability

as a society to deal with issues of critical

importance. Anyone who wants better-informed

public policy should support efforts to improve

education in every subject area.

In Washington, we’ve wrestled with education-

funding training, but this year the Legislature

provided money to keep some important programs

running.

We need to push for all of our children to get the

education they’ll need in an increasingly complex

world. Citizenship demands it.

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INTERESTED IN HAVING YOUR

BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTED IN THE

NEWSLETTER?

DROP AN EMAIL TO

Staff@Tabor100.org or

PublicAffairs@Tabor100.org

OR CALL

(425) 882-4800 Ext. 107.

2018 Applications Now Open

University of Washington Business Growth

Collaborative

Management education program designed to

accelerate the growth of small-and medium sized

businesses

This program will accelerate the growth of

companies through management education

leading to the development of strategic growth

plans and the development of CEO-to-CEO

networks that will open new business

opportunities.

Program benefits include:

• Development of three year strategic growth

plans assisted by business experts and

fellow company owners

• Access to consulting teams of business students

to work on strategic projects for

your company

• Networking opportunities with business experts,

lenders and potential customers

• Management education classes including

finance, branding, and business strategy

• Creation of a CEO-to-CEO community to provide

owners a “mini-board of directors”

to help make critical decisions

For more information and to apply click on the link

below:

http://bit.ly/businessgrowthcollaborative

Priority application deadline:

November 22th

, 2017

A limited numbers of scholarships are

available, so please apply today.

University of Washington Business Growth Collaborative

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Thank You to our Partners!

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THE TABOR 100 BOARD

President: Ollie Garrett President@Tabor100.org Vice President: Brian Sims VP@Tabor100.org Treasurer: Aundrea Jackson Treasurer@Tabor100.org Secretary: Sherlita Kennedy Secretary@Tabor100.org Membership: Dee Riley Membership@Tabor100.org Education: Kevin C. Washington Education@Tabor100.org Public Affairs: Henry Yates PublicAffairs@Tabor100.org Economic Development: Edson Zavala EconomicDevelopment@Tabor100.org Government Affairs: Vacant GovernmentAffairs@Tabor100.org Fund Development: Abdul Yusuf FundDevelopment@Tabor100.org Business Development: Anthony Burnett BusinessDev@Tabor100.org TABOR OFFICE 2330 130th Ave. NE #101 Bellevue, WA 98005 425-882-4800 x 107 Staff@Tabor100.org Newsletter Editor: Kalea Perry KaleaPerry@Hotmail.com General Meeting Photos Courtesy of Flyright Productions (206) 860-9813

WE ENCOURAGE YOU

TO REACH OUT!

UPCOMING EVENTS Oct. 28: Tabor 100 General Meeting, 10am - 12pm, Central Area Senior Center Oct. 30: South Sound Summit, 1pm - 7pm, Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center, Pre-Registration Required Nov. 01: North Puget Sound Small Business Summit, 7am - 4pm, Lynnwood Convention Center Nov. 02: Connect the DoTS: Compliance (Working With SDOT Series, 9:30am - 12:30pm, Seattle City Hall - Bertha Knight Landes Room Nov. 11: 19th Annual African Day Business Forum, 8am - 10pm, Motif Hotel, Pre-Registration Required Nov. 13: UW Supplier Orientation, 1pm - 2:30pm, Pre-Registration Required for location Nov. 13: YPN at the Seattle Metro Chamber, 5:30pm - 7:30pm, Seattle Metro Chamber Nov. 15: Executive Speaker Series: Cannabusiness, 12pm - 1:30pm, Microsoft Event Center at the Seattle Metro Chamber Nov. 16: WIBLI “21” Lunch-Fall 2017, 12pm - 1:30pm, Microsoft Events Center at the Seattle Metro Chamber Nov. 30: Sound Transit DBE/SB Technical Assistance Program: Cost Proposal Training, 9am - 4pm. Sound Transit’s Ruth Fisher Room, Register by Nov. 24.

COMMITTEE MEETINGS

Education Committee meets after the Tabor General Meeting, the last Saturday of the month from 12-2pm at the Central Area Senior Center Combined Library and Computer Room

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