YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY Seminar teaches students to 'make a difference'

The high school students are spending a week learning about business.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Strive to make a difference in your endeavors in your home, business and community, a business executive told high school students attending a seminar at Youngstown State University.
"Our world today needs men and women who want to be difference-makers," said Will Knecht, marketing manager for Wendell August Forge, a Grove City, Pa.-based metal giftware company.
Knecht has worked with the company in various capacities since 1989, having led the company to a 300 percent sales increase during his tenure as president.
He told the audience one of the reasons he stepped down as company president and took a pay cut was to allow him to spend more time with his wife and children and to make more of a difference in rearing his children.
Knecht spoke Wednesday to a gathering of participants in Ohio Business Week, a weeklong business training program, which will end Saturday. YSU is the host of the program for the fourth consecutive year.
Through OBW, more than 110 students from across the state are learning business concepts, theories and skills from local and regional business leaders, competing in business-related activites, attending workshops and touring local businesses.
Responsibility
"With that talent, with those gifts and the ability that each of you has, there comes a responsibility,'' Knecht said. "My challenge to you today is to take up that torch of leadership" in your school, home, church and community, he told the audience.
"Many folks in the business world are all about themselves," he said, decrying the craving for personal wealth and status. "My challenge to you today is to rise above that. Take a different path -- the path of a difference-maker.
"The opportunities for you to make a difference are everywhere. Start in your school," Knecht advised, suggesting that the students should encourage and befriend, rather than ridicule, some of their less-popular classmates who don't seem to fit in.
He invited students in the audience to mention volunteer activities they are engaged in, praising them for their service in Habitat for Humanity, Black Achievers, soup kitchens, retirement homes and hospitals.
"You stand in the gap, helping folks who need help," he said. "You're the best. You're the leaders of tomorrow. Will your life count? You can use your life to change the world."
He concluded: "Will you make a difference? Will you change this world? We need you to, and you can."