RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Junior Achievement volunteers Will and Marta Sanburn sit with their dog Annie outside their home at Portlock.

Seniors teach juniors
to achieve success

Will and Marta Sanburn
use their experience to teach
economics and independence

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By Allison Schaefers
aschaefers@starbulletin.com

Will and Marta Sanburn, Junior Achievement volunteers, have long been retired, but the Hawaii Kai couple are still working hard to help make sure young people are educated about business, economics and free enterprise.

Together the couple lend their expertise, he as a top business executive, she as a home engineer whose product was independent children, to Junior Achievement of Hawaii Inc. The organization provides Hawaii's students in grades K-12 with age-appropriate lessons designed to teach elementary students about their roles as individuals, workers and consumers; and to prepare middle grade and high school students for the key economic and workforce issues they will face.

The Sanburns epitomize the best that Junior Achievement has to offer, said Eva Laird Smith, president of JA of Hawaii.

"Will Sanburn's many years of service as a volunteer at JA makes him a walking compendium of the organization's history, its many successes and challenges, and the people behind the organization," said Smith "He remains focused on the need for kids to learn about financial literacy because he believes this is the way for them to succeed in life."

Will, who retired in 1992, had an active professional life that brought him into contact with leaders in Hawaii's business community. The 84-year-old once worked for Container Corp. of America, ran an iron-casting company, and was general manager at Boise Cascade, Hopaco, and Boise Cascade Office Supplies covering the USA, Canada and Hawaii. He developed Waikoloa hotels on the Big Island and helped plan a Molokai resort that was derailed by the end of the Japanese bubble economy.

The JA volunteer also counsels small business owners through SCORE (the Service Corps of Retired Executives) and has served as a member of the Hawaii Council on Economic Education, which encourages the teaching of economics in the schools.

And Marta opens her home to JA Achievement students by hosting parties and helping with fundraising, Smith said.

The couple also has family ties to the Horace Moses, the man who helped found Junior Achievement in 1919.

"Junior Achievement was formed the year I was born by my grandmother's cousin," Sanburn said. "I used to hear about the organization from my mother, Marion Sanburn."

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM "Parents need to stop coddling their children. So many ... don't know how to live their own lives" --Marta Sanburn

Will grew up near Moses and said the prominent paper manufacturer influenced him. He was interested in educating young people about America's business world through experimental projects, Will said.

Junior Achievement started as a small, after-school business clubs for students in Springfield, Mass. Now, JA programs are taught by volunteers in-class and after-school at locations throughout the United States and in nearly 100 countries.

"JA gives an opportunity to kids who have been deprived of the slightest knowledge of what it takes to run a successful business ," Marta said.

Lessons about free enterprise and economics are still just as important as they were for the children of previous decades, the Sanburns said.

"Perhaps even more so now when families have so many distractions," Marta said.

Will said he also learned about free enterprise from the example set by his father Jutus Sanburn, who ran Strathmore Paper Co.

"My Dad worked six days a week," Will said.

Later, Will also helped his mother make decisions for Springfield Foundry Co., a family business that made iron castings.

"Business was just a part of our lives," he said. "It was how we lived."

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM "To be successful in business, students need to be able to understand ... free enterprise." --Will Sanburn

Nowadays children spend more time in front of TV and video games and less time communicating with family members, Will said.

Parents can help their children to become better suited to making it on their own by fostering a sense of independence, Marta said.

"Parents need to stop coddling their children. So many children don't know how to live their own lives," Marta said.

The Sanburns said they taught their children how to succeed by expecting success and that's an attitude JA fosters.

"It's very important to have the program in schools," Will said. "To be successful in business, students need to be able to understand the free enterprise system."