FORT LEWIS, Wash. - Jonathan Pan spent the last several months developing a boat-cleaning business through a course offered at the University of Washington - time and money well spent for most, but well out of the ordinary for an active-duty Army captain.
With only a few weeks left until he deploys with the Special Troops Battalion, 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, many might wonder how the class prepared Pan for 12 months in southern Afghanistan.
"We want to work with the Afghanistan government, the Army and the police to improve their security and economy within the area of Afghanistan that we're charged with," Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Patrick Gaydon said. "By empowering them, it will help us accomplish our mission and, in the long-term, it will allow them to provide their own security."
Pan was designated as the battalion's economic development officer. His objective of boosting the Afghan economy turned out to require more skills than he possessed at the time.
"Business leaders in the Northwest all said that what we wanted to do required someone with 10 years of business experience," Pan said. "So we thought, 'Well, what can we do in six months'' and I found the class."
The course, a two-quarter series at the school's main campus in Seattle, is designed for students to apply their business skills in real-world situations.
During the first quarter, students formed teams, came up with concepts for starting their own businesses and received loans in amounts between $1,000 and $3,000. The second quarter was all about running the businesses.
"This is the first chance they have to take all the pieces, put them together and find out what works and what doesn't," Entrepreneurship and Innovation Class instructor John Castle said.
Castle, who has been teaching the class for six years, worked with the 27 students in Pan's class who developed, among other things, hot dog selling and Pan's boat-washing businesses. He was the first active-military student in Castle's class.
"(Pan) took the class because he was going to have to go over there and help them start businesses," he said. "He hadn't the slightest idea what that meant and now he has ... a pretty good idea."
The lessons and strategies Pan learned over the last six months will soon be tested. He plans to start with simple ideas.
Thirty basic questions, ranging from "what do you want to do'" to "who wants it'" will be translated onto small cards for units to hand out during patrols.
"If they can answer all 30 of these questions intelligently, they will be able to meet with me for a personal class where I can explain what we can do and what we can offer," he said.
The classes, which Pan will teach, are intended to provide Afghan citizens with the information they need to start their own businesses in exchange for things like intelligence information.
Brigade Commander Col. Harry D. Tunnell IV compared the southern Afghanistan economy to a child starting a lemonade stand in the U.S.
"Merely making money is not enough ... It's all about how you tie a population to the government," he said.
Tunnell said a business needs lawyers, a tax scheme and investors with a protected investment. He observed that if the businesses turn a profit, Afghan intrapreneurs will increase their living standards, be treated with more respect and dignity - as important an outcome as the success of an economy.
Pan agrees.
"It's not like Iraq," he said. "If I did this in Iraq, I would have full confidence that I would be successful. But in southern Afghanistan, not even northern where it is relatively peaceful, it's going to be interesting."
Kelly McGrathis a reporter with Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian.
Social Sharing