B E T T C H E R F U N D CREATIVE GENEROSITY. Big, creative ideas. For Larry Bettcher, those are important. Clearly, lofty ideas were a key ingredient to Bettcher Industries’ rise from a handful of people when Larry joined his father’s firm, to the industry leading, world- wide specialty manufacturer it is today. Big, creative thinking drove Bettcher Industries’ ability to continually meet the needs of its demanding customers and earn their deep, abiding loyalty in return. Big ideas have great value in philanthropy, too. Larry and Karen Bettcher have supported the Community Foundation since the beginning. But it was some recent, complex creativity that had the most impact. It starts with an ESOP, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, that allowed employees to become owners of Bettcher Industries. As the ESOP acquired Larry Bettcher’s stock, a portion of the proceeds were deposited directly into the donor advised Larry and Karen Bettcher Foundation Fund at the Community Foundation. It was a win for everyone involved: the employees, the Bettchers, and the entire Erie County community considering the long-term impact of their charitable fund. 10 | M A U R U S H A T E N G I N E E R I N G S C H O L A R S H I P F U N D THE WORLD IS FLAT. About a dozen years ago, a columnist of The New York Times, Thomas Friedman, published his book, The World is Flat. It was based on an idea he heard from an executive in India who once said, “the playing field is being leveled” when referring to the many innovations that have resulted in ‘globalization 3.0,’ the latest phase in an ever- increasing pace of a world growing smaller, more accessible, and essentially, flat. Jocelyn Maurushat read that book and quickly realized this flattening was being driven by countless technological innova- tions. She also realized that we needed more and more engineers right here in the US to keep pace in generating that innovative technology. Thus, she came to the Erie County Community Foundation to create a scholarship fund for home grown engineers. She was married to an engineer for 55 of her 92 years, Ewalt Maurushat. She taught school, and he was a career GM engineer who loved his job and loved going to work every day. Regular, hardworking people who were able to save a little money so that they could establish a fund to award scholarships to aspiring engineers for many years to come. Jocelyn’s idea was to help similar hard- working families fund the education of their children. Her idea is to help out as long as the students continue to work hard and prove their abilities. Joycelyndidnotstartthefundtomemorialize her husband, but to celebrate his love of engineering and to give a boost to our next generation of world flattening engineers. |11