History of The Rotary Club of Space Center
(Houston), Texas, and U.S.A. Rotary International
District 5890 Club 2010
PROJECT FREE ENTERPRISE 1991-1996
"The Rotary spirit of
international cooperation has motivated development of this
seminar to share free enterprise ideas, experience, and
practical advice with the newly emerging free economies of the
1990's. This seminar presents the principles of a free market
and follows with a practical step by step road map for
developing your own business enterprise." ...
Purpose and Goals from Project Free
Enterprise 1991 Manual
Rotary Year 1990-1991 Dr. David Taylor was the
originator of the program and described its origin in his
own words in 2009.
"International Youth
Exchange started about 1985, and was headed in the district by
Harold Jones. I served on that first district committee,
and my son was on the first exchange we arranged and was sent
to England as part of a group of four. I chaired Youth
Exchange at our club for some time, served as the District
chairman, and then in 1987 or 1988 managed to arrange
exchanges with Hungary and East Germany using non-Rotarian
contacts (they were still communist and did not have
Rotary). We also sent two students to Moscow the next
year. The Youth Exchange objective is to foster world
peace through understanding. The many countries we had
exchanged with did not have peace issues with us so an effort
was made to exchange behind the Iron Curtain. My
contacts for this were Gert and Marta Bahlo. Marta’s
sister still lived in Hungary and she contacted her and got
the pastor of her church to make the arrangements, and Gert
was a native of East Germany and still had family there.
Marta was the mother of one of my patients and her accent
tipped me off. Moscow university became the source in
the Soviet Union as a result of my letter writing. When the
Berlin Wall came down in 1989, I used some of these same
contacts to start an international project to go to the
Eastern bloc and give seminars on small business and free
enterprise. This was called Project Free
Enterprise. This was a Rotary project funded by a
matching grant, and some of the speakers on these trips came
from our own club – such as Gonzalo Montoya. These were
2-day free seminars to hundreds of people arranged by Rotary
clubs in Hungary and Poland. We spoke in 16 cities in
four years, and gave talks covering the business plan,
management, marketing, finance, quality assurance, business
ethics, management information systems, ISO standards,
etc. A typical team was 8 people. After NAFTA was
passed by Bill Clinton, there seemed to be a similar need for
finding common ground in our business practices with Mexico
business men, so I took a Project Amigo seminar team to Mexico
City in 1995 and gave five seminars at various places around
the city, arranged by our sister club there, Aeropuerto, and
one of its past presidents, Umberto Orozco."
A
letter from Dr.
Taylor dated October 17, 1991 to "Those Listed " and the
referenced letter from Alexander Tarnavsky, Rotary Club of
Moscow, also describes the ideas behind the project
(Tarnavsky's letter follows Dr. Taylor's).
The earlist record of the program was
Rotary year 1990-91. There were several documents
in the file relating the startup issues involved with the
project. These documents were the following: an
article in the April 1,
1991 Blastoff
and a picture of a banner in the
April 15,
1991 Blastoff
. Also the September
4, 1990 minutes
, under
unfinished business, noted that Dr. David Taylor was concerned
about the program. The September
18, 1990 minutes
noted
that Project Free Enterprise System was placed under Owen
Morris and the Avenue of Service, International
Service. Also there was a letter dated October 31,
1990
from Dr. David Taylor to District 589's
55 clubs regarding a meeting on Project Free
Enterprise and an article to be placed in the Blastoff.
Dr. Taylor shared his vision for
the project free enterprise program in a
letter dated May 7, 1990 to District 589 Governor
Sonny Nichols and in a
letter dated June 6, 1990 to Moscow Rotarian
Alexander Tarnavski. Also in the file were two documents
asssociated with the first seminar, an
Agenda and
Introductory Remarks .
The first
project free
enterprise was
very successful and noted in Rotary International April/May
1992 newsletter: "Out of Dr. Taylor's concern and
sub-sequent organizational efforts, an ambitious program
evolved: It is called Project Free Enterprise. Supported by
clubs throughout District 5890, the program allows Rotarians
to bring a comprehensive two-day seminar on basic U.S.A.
business practices to audiences in Eastern Europe and
Russia. A team of eight speakers conducted three
seminars in Poland and Hungary last year. In May (1992)
Dr. Taylor and nine others, mostly Rotarians, will return to
Poland for seminars in Warsaw, Wroclaw and Katowice."
Read all of
the article. Also a summary of the first project is
contained in a
letter
and the attachments
(view colored photos of Rotary
International Convention where Project Free Enterprise program
was displayed) from Dr. David Taylor to Will White, Editor of
the Rotary Magazine. View the trips in photos from
the seminars in
Budapest,
Warsaw, and
Torun. View the Charter Cermony
Program for
the Torun Rotary Club of Poland. The
speech
that Kevin Price, a member of
the Project Free Enterprise I Team, delivered in Poland
appeared in an issue of the national publication, Vital
Speeches, which is well respected in academic, political, and
business circles. Less than 250 speeches a year appear
in this magazine.
Rotary Year 1991-1992
The
following information was in the February 24, 1992 Blastoff
regarding Project Free Enterprise. "Dr. David Taylor and
his Project Free Enterprise Team II are making plans for their
seminars in Poland beginning May 6 through the 18. The
seminars will be free and open to Polish citizens who wish to
learn business principles of the United States. The topics
include-role of government in business, management, marketing,
bookkeeping, accounting, finance, business plans, global
marketing, manufacturing, law and business resources. The
attendees will also participate in a half-day workshop and
communicate directly with the speakers on their topics.
David and his team are looking for professionals from various
avenues of American business to travel to Warsaw, Wroclaw and
Katowice, Poland in May at the cost of $1,500 each. Members of
the team are currently accepting donations and are selling
advertising space in the seminar program to finance the trip.
Businesses who want exposure in Eastern Europe as well as the
many international organizations the program will reach, are
encouraged to place an ad early as the deadline is February
1992."
The second free enterprise
project consisted of a series of seminars by
an eigth member
team held
in Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Katowice Poland May 12
-16, 1992. A notebook titled
"Documentation"
contained much information about the first, but primarily, the
second project. It contained preparations, agendas, the
team, correspondence from persons in Poland and Hungary and
the United States, and a District 5890 newsletter on Project
Free Enterprise II. In the Notebook was a letter of
appreciation from Aleksander Szwarc to Dr. David Taylor
summarizing the results of the seminars. A portion
of the letter stated " We appreciate the
effort of Rotarians from Houston who spent much time and work
on preparation of the Free Enterprise Project. It is not
only a vocational service, but the most of "Look
Beyound Yourself" in helping people of Poland to go
through extremely difficult time of transtion from centrally
planned to free maket economy." The entire letter is
very intersting along with others in the notebook. Also read a
newspaper
article
in The Citizen dated February 16, 1992 about the second
project.
After the first two projects a "how to"
manual titled,
Project
Free Enterprise Manual , was compiled as a reference for
forming further projects. It consisted of relative
information such as pictures, procedures, examples, and
references.
Rotary Year 1992-1993 There was little material
regarding the Project Free Enterprise program.
A
letter from Dr. David
Taylor, Director Project Free Enterprise, summarized the
program as of September 2, 1992 alluding to a third team and
trip. View the Project Free Enterprise III
manual.
The project consisted of a 8 member team to Lodz,
Poznan, and Bydgoszcz Poland from September 23, to October 7,
1993.
View
travel schedule and team members.
Rotary Year
1993-1994 Project
Free Enterprise IV
was
seminars by a 6 member team held in Warsaw, Bydgoszcz,
and Wroclaw Poland from October 8 to October 15, 1994. View
the material as noted below in tabs
presented at the seminars and photos of the project.
Tab
1
Introduction by Dr. David Taylor Tab
2
Management Considerations by Dr. David Taylor Tab
3
Case Study by Tad Pilinski Tab
4 The Business Plan by Marla Burns Tab
5
Marketing by Wojciech Kic Tab
6 Financial Analysis by
Michael K. Bourke Tab
6 (Financial Analysis)
Introduction
to Afternoon Session by Tad Pilinski Tab
6 (Financial
Analysis) Start-Up Considerations by
Wojciech Kic Tab
6 (Financial
Analysis) Financial
Operating Records by Maria Burns Tab
6
(Financial Analysis) Sales by Wojciech
Kic Tab
7 Formal Business Presentations by Maria
Burns Tab
7
(Formal
Business Presentations) The Steps In Computer Implementation by Michael
Bourke, PHD Tab
7 (Formal
Business Presentations) The Costs And Benefits Of Computers by
Micheal Bourke,
PHD Tab
8
International Trade and Finance by Michael Bourke, PHD Tab
9 ISO 9000, A
Road to Total Quality Managment (TQM) by Tadeusz K.
Pilinski
Rotary Year 1994-1995 There were no project free enterprise
seminars during the Rotary year as Dr. Taylor was President of Rotary
Club of Space Center.
Rotary Year 1995-1996 The Rotary Seminar Team
district committee sent its fifth team to share information
from one Rotary district to another, this time to Mexico
City. This team was known as
Project
Amigo (the manual was in Spanish except
what is shown). Four previous seminar teams from
Houston to Eastern Europe were known as Project Free
Enterprise. The idea for this new form of Rotary service
was spawned when the Berlin wall came down. The team of
eight Houston business people gave five seminars in one week
at various locations in Mexico City. Three were all-day
seminars on the basics of operating a business. One
half-day seminar was for individuals thinking of starting a
business. And another all-day seminar was for advanced
topics of interest to certain established businesses.
The continuation of this
write-up,
a
write-up in the District
5890 "The Gov's Views and News" newsletter dated December
1995, and the
Purpose and Goals
of Project Amigo provide more insight into the
project. View business card on Project Amigo.
An excerpt from an
interesting letter dated April 3, 1996 regarding
benefits of project free entrprise noted" I told Alex
that I had gotten a Christmas card from Zygmunt Mackiewicz,
now the current president of the Bydgoszcz Rotary Club, in
which he told me how much their cardiology program there had
been upgraded as a result of his stay at the Texas Heart
Institute. Zygmunt was one of the first two doctors we
hosted here for two weeks at THI. I suggested he speak
to Zygmunt first before we try to deal with THI.
Bydgoszcz is about 200 KM away and Alex went there to see him
before submitting for surgery." Read entire
letter.
Also some interesting
information about possible
spin-offs of the project free enterprise program was in the
January 8, 1996 Blastoff.
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