What a week! Right on the heels of winning the 2011 Quality Award from Pepsico Americas Foods last week, our own DePaul Industries’ President & CEO Dave Shaffer was named the winner of the 2012 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Pacific Northwest! The award was presented at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue outside of Seattle at a special gala this past Friday, June 15, 2012.
This is a huge accomplishment for Dave, as well as for DePaul’s innovative demand-driven business model of employing people with disabilities. For years, we’ve focused on developing solutions for businesses by leveraging the unique talents of people with disabilities. To be acknowledged by Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award—an award that has recognized the likes of Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Richard Schulze of Best Buy and others—is a major milestone in our history.
Dave put it best when he said that his long-term goal would be for our customers and another companies to put DePaul Industries out of business, by fully integrating people with disabilities into the workforce and making high unemployment rates a thing of the past. “In the interim, though,” said Dave to the audience on Friday night, “I ask you to take a risk (that’s what entrepreneurialism is all about): Hire people with disabilities. The rewards will dwarf the risk 10 times over.”
Check out a video of Dave’s acceptance speech below:
