Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Behind the Partnerships: Tamra Busch-Johnsen

Photos and story by James Hill

By James Hill Since 1987, Tamra Busch-Johnsen has been the executive director of the Business Education Compact, a nonprofit organization founded in 1984 to serve as an intermediary for business and education partnerships to promote excellence in education. A graduate of Wisconsin State University and possessing a master’s degree from Lewis and Clark College, Busch-Johnsen has been a teacher in Kodiak, Alaska, Beaverton High School and Portland State University.She now lives in an 1860 farmhouse in Wilsonville with her husband, two kids, and four horses, five dogs, two cats, quail and pigeons. They are active bird hunting, golfing and horseback riding.Together with the board of directors, she has grown the BEC from a zero budget to a $2 million budget organization that has given more than 2,000 teachers opportunities to see and learn about the workplace and placed more than 1,000 students in paid internships.PCC’s PAVTEC Education Consortium teamed with BEC to launch the Educator Internship program in 1986. In 1990, PAVTEC contracted with the BEC to provide summer internships for PCC faculty, Portland Public School and Washington County teachers. The support of PCC and PAVTEC helped to provide work-place learning opportunities for thousands of teachers and counselors. Question: How did you get involved with Business Education Compact?TBJ: I began my career with the Compact while on a professional leave from the Beaverton School District to serve as coordinator of the Compact’s Teacher Internship Program. That summer I accepted the position to be the first Executive Director of the organization. Q: What was the lure of the job?TBJ: The position with the Compact offered me the opportunity to work with many teachers and to help link them to the business community. The Teacher Internship Program was an opportunity for me to do what I believed in – offer a broad array of professional enhancement opportunities for teachers, counselors and administrators in local business settings. These opportunities give participating educators a chance to see first-hand the demands on people in the local work force, and give them a chance to see their academic discipline actually applied in business.Q: Do you ever wish you had tried another career path?TBJ: My career with the Compact is one I’ll never regret. I keep saying I have the best job in the world. I work with dedicated, superb staff and board members who generously give of their own time and resources to help make the BEC successful. Most importantly, I see the excitement and professional changes in teachers as they return to their classrooms each fall energetically applying what they learned in their summer internships. I hear students express interest in school once again after seeing how important basic skills are in the workplace and that education is the key to their future.Q: What is your motto in business?TBJ: "Never Give Up." It is very difficult to manage a non-profit in normal times but much more difficult in tough times. My belief in people during these hard times has been re-affirmed once again. In tough times, we’ve grown stronger. Staff members accepted more to do and dug in. Board members stepped forward in a variety of ways to help. Washington Mutual provided new office space, IBEW re-wired the office for our technology and Intel provide much needed grants. Every board member and others in the community gave either cash or in-kind resources to assist us in reaching our financial goals.Q: What is the most important aspect of the BEC?TBJ: It brings together leaders from both industry/business and education. Too often organizations represent one or the other, never both. The BEC is unique in that both business and education plan and work together to better education. It provides the linkages that are necessary for both worlds to be successful.Q: What is your favorite moment as executive director of BEC? TBJ: The most recent "best moment"was when the Compact received news of a generous grant that helped us launch a statewide Collaborative Teacher Development Initiative. This initiative is a collaboration of partners from higher education, community colleges, school districts, state education agencies, including the Department of Education, Teacher Standards and Practices Commission, Oregon Education Association and private industry. This new initiative will expand professional development opportunities for existing teachers and teacher preparation programs to include ways of connecting classroom learning to real world contexts and applications.