Team Insight

16 • Team Insight ~ May/June 2023 teaminsightmag.com THE ONE-ON-ONE PROJECT: BILL HUNT school now and what it means to you personally and to the company? In 1999, when we entered into a joint venture to start an apparel factory in Ethiopia, an Ethiopian friend who taught school with Terese during my Peace Corps days asked if I would help provide funding for a school he wanted to start. I asked him why and where he wanted to start the school and he pleaded with me to take a day and travel to the site with him. I agreed and the next day we drove two hours from Addis Ababa, then hiked into the hills for three hours to a village with no electricity, no running water and no school within a three hour walking distance. What happened after that? He explained that without a school, the kids in the area would be illiterate and could only grow up to be subsistence farmers as their parents. I agreed that, if Champro could make a profit from our factory in Ethiopia, we would provide funding to start the school. Fortunately, our manufacturing operation in Ethiopia was profitable and we started construction on the first school building in 2001, for incoming first graders. Any message you want to send to the team sporting goods industry on the eve of your induction into the Hall of Fame? ose of us in the team sports industry should take pride in the fact that our life's work enables people to play sports. We need to recognize that the benefits of team sports, for young people especially, extend beyond those derived from physical activity. Players on a team learn the importance of teamwork, leadership, respect and the value of practicing to improve performance. Players on a team also learn to work with and support teammates who may be very different from themselves. e sporting goods industry helps provide a means and in some ways indirect encouragement for kids to play sports. We should take pride in that and do whatever we can, as an industry, to help increase team sports participation. What's the future hold for Bill Hunt? I have always been a competitive person and get satisfaction both from low golf scores and high scores on our company performance metrics. I'll enjoy going to work at Champro every day as long as I feel like I am contributing to higher scores in our company performance. n FEATURING: • The Richardson commitment to quality and fit. • Color shade consistency across all Richardson PTS products. • Simple, all-inclusive pricing on uniforms for both HYPR Twill and Sublimated models. H E A D W E A R | U N I F O R M S | T E A M W E A R

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