“The Parachinis’ gift will help to produce graduates who have the desire and ability to apply practical business methods to improve society,” says Len Jessup, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. “It will serve as a tremendous boost to the college’s drive toward developing students with an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit.”
The Don and Mary Ann Parachini Scholarship in Entrepreneurship will support WSU students pursuing training in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. With the scholarship, non-business students will be able to marry the study of entrepreneurship with their chosen major. The Parachinis hope the multidisciplinary approach to entrepreneurship will help educate and inspire students to solve problems creatively and seize opportunities to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches, and discover ways to obtain and sustain the funding necessary to advance sustainable solutions that create social value.
“Through the Parachinis’ support, an increasing number of WSU students seeking to influence positive societal change will gain essential skills to match their creativity with practicality,” says Erich Lear, dean, College of Liberal Arts.
The professorship will focus on incorporating the concept of social entrepreneurship into the curriculum so students from all disciplines will learn to implement practical business solutions to social problems they may encounter in their chosen fields or industries. In addition to curricula development and research in areas of entrepreneurship and innovation, the holder of the Don and Mary Ann Parachini Distinguished Professorship in Entrepreneurship will administer the scholarship program.
Don (’56 Business Administration) and Mary Ann Parachini have been actively engaged with WSU throughout the years. Don is a member of the WSU Foundation Board of Governors, serves on the Foundation’s Gift Acceptance and Management Committee, and has been a member of the WSU Foundation’s Board of Trustees and the Foundation’s Northern California Leadership Advisory Council. He is also a member of the college’s Entrepreneurship Advisory Board and National Board of Advisors.
