The afternoon bell signals the end the school day, but there is no break for Val Laufenberg.
Full of energy, the executive director of the nonprofit organization, Americans for the Competitive Enterprise System (ACES) headquartered in Erie, is already busily planning for the next few weeks, preparing herself and her team for an intense week of working with high school students throughout Northwest Pennsylvania.
For Laufenberg, working with these youngsters isn’t a “job,” but a calling. In fact, 10 years after ACES took the reins of Pennsylvania Business Week (PBW) from the Manufacturer & Business Association, she is just as enthusiastic about the prospects of introducing this one-of-a-kind in-school program to a new group of students, as she was when she first started out.
Like any business venture, Pennsylvania Business Week was inspired by an idea – to expose high school juniors to economics education and promote the free enterprise system in an intense, weeklong in-school program. The test site for the first program began at Fort LeBoeuf High School in 1997-1998 under the leadership of the late principal, Art Bergamasco, and was profiled in the February 1998 Business Report article, “Tomorrow’s CEOs.” More than a decade later, the program has reached more than 10,000 students at 14 high schools in five counties throughout Western Pennsylvania.
