New world awaits students
CHERRY TWP — He was raised in Knox, Clarion County, and today deals with customers across the world, particularly in Japan.
Neil Ashbaugh, senior marketing specialist with Oberg Industries, brought his story to high school students Thursday, urging them to think about a global marketplace. Ashbaugh spoke to a group of 30 high school students from Allegheny-Clarion Valley and Moniteau at the Moniteau High School auditorium. It was a presentation by the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.
Even for students growing up in rural Western Pennsylvania, a globalized economy will shape their careers.
"The message is it's a changing world and what happens out there matters to you," said Schuyler Foerster, president of the council.
Ashbaugh urged the students to learn more languages and get a broad education. But, learning how to have relationships with people of different cultures is the key to competing in a global economy.
He explained that in the time he's been with the business, offices have been added in Costa Rica and Tacate, Mexico. So, the company tried to start a Spanish language program for the employees.
"Then we learned the way you say something in Costa Rica is not how you say it in Tacate," he said. He compared the language differences of the "yinz" of Pittsburgh and the "y'all" of Texas. The lesson to be learned, he said, was that students could do all the classroom work, but exposure to different cultures is necessary to do business.
For example, he said, he learned from selling product to a client that the Japanese don't want to be put up in a hotel when they visit the United States to do business. One client stayed in his home and ate with his family. He also appreciated the large backyard at Ashbaugh's home.
That's a long way from the clientele of Oberg when it began in 1948 in Freeport.
Ashbaugh said today the company employs 750 people and sells 40 percent of its products internationally. The company produces a variety of products that do metal stamping for the U.S. Treasury and the parts used in knee replacements.
Foerster said just as computers changed the generation before, a global economy will change the lives of students today.
"This region's economy is tied to the hip of what happens in the rest of the world," he said.
He urged high schools to go beyond teaching a class about world cultures and instead include lessons about the world in every class from math to reading.
Jeremy Borkowsi, Moniteau High School teacher, organized Thursday's event so he could do that.
Each day, his social studies classes talk about current events and class discussions, he said.
"I want to give the kids a competitive advantage," he said.
In past years, he said, Moniteau students visited Upper St. Clair to hear Wold Affairs Council presentations, but he wanted to bring that back home and invite other Butler County schools.
