Commending and supporting the efforts of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), the world's preeminent collegiate free enterprise organization.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 107, a resolution commending and supporting the efforts of Students in Free Enterprise, and I thank the gentleman for bringing this resolution forward.

Madam Speaker, I authored this resolution with the strong support of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) to recognize Students in Free Enterprise, more commonly known as SIFE. SIFE is a nonprofit organization started in 1975, which seeks to instill in college students a greater appreciation for, and understanding of, the free enterprise system. Students in Free Enterprise has grown to become one of the largest university-based organizations in the world. SIFE teams are active on more than 1,400 college and university campuses in 33 countries around the world. In my home State of Arkansas, we have SIFE teams on 18 university and college campuses. It is wonderful to see the opportunities that SIFE has provided to students across Arkansas.

Working together as a team and through the mentorship of faculty advisers, SIFE students apply their classroom experiences to develop and implement educational outreach programs that teach individuals in their communities the principles of market economics, entrepreneurship, personal financial success, and business ethics.

Madam Speaker, I will insert into the Record a copy of an article published by the Wall Street Journal on January 14, 2003, entitled ``Program Puts College Students on Business-Leadership Paths.'' The article details a student who was the first in her family to go beyond high school and entered college with a vague dream of being a real estate broker. While attending community college, she found SIFE and went on to compete against other SIFE teams on the regional and national level. This former student has finished her bachelor's degree and is now the manager of the Washington, D.C. office of KPMG.

Thousands of success stories just like this one are associated with SIFE and the efforts of their president, Alvin Rohrs. Mr. Rohrs is to be personally commended. Alvin Rohrs has been SIFE's president and chief executive officer since 1983. He successfully reversed the organization's fortunes by seeking a diverse board of directors to energize the organization.

Rohrs was a SIFE chapter adviser at Southwest Baptist University in Missouri in 1983 when SIFE's national board hired him to try to reverse the organization's fortunes.

SIFE started with a bang in 1975, but lost its spark in the early 1980s as the U.S. economy faltered and SIFE's backers, large industrial corporations, cut their contributions. The roster of SIFE schools had shrunk from 100 in 1981 to 18 two years later. To get the energy back, Rohrs sought influential board members from half a dozen members in 1983. SIFE's Free Enterprise Dream Team, what most of us would call a board of directors, now numbers more than 200 strong. Their board is comprised of presidents and CEOs from a wide variety of corporations, including Wal-Mart, Black & Decker, Valvoline, and American Greetings; and neither Rohrs nor his board believes the organization is close to reaching its potential.

Madam Speaker, I commend Mr. Rohrs on his 20-year anniversary as president of SIFE, and I recognize the incredible organization that has made a difference in the lives of millions. I encourage my colleagues to vote their support of H. Res. 107.

The aforementioned article is as follows:

[From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 14, 2003]

Program Puts College Students On Business-Leadership Paths

When Carole Clay Withers enrolled at Walters State

Community College in Morristown, TN, 15 years ago, she had

never flown in an airplane or eaten in a restaurant with

tablecloths. The first member of her family to go beyond high

school, she wanted to see more of the world than her native

rural Tennessee and had a vague dream of becoming a real-

estate broker.

Then she found SIFE, or Students in Free Enterprise. When

her economics professor talked up the nonprofit organization,

based in Springfield, MO, as a place where she could learn

about business firsthand by doing entrepreneurial projects

with fellow students, ``I flew down the hall to sign up,''

says Ms. Withers.

Her five-person SIFE team taught business concepts to

elementary-school students by creating coloring books that

showed how crops planted in the region eventually were

marketed and sold world-wide.

The team competed against other college SIFE teams in

regional and national contests, where they were judged by

corporate executives. ``When my team made it to the finals at

the national championship in Kansas City, and I stood on the

stage fielding questions from the judges, I felt my life had

changed,'' says Ms. Withers. ``I realized that if I could

answer all the questions being posed by some of the country's

most powerful executives, I had what I needed to become an

executive myself.''

She completed her bachelor's degree in accounting and now

is a manager at the Washington, DC, office of KPMG. ``If not

for SIFE, I would probably be working in a low-paid factory

job,'' she says.

SIFE is offering a lesson all good managers should help to

teach: that business is a part of the fabric of every

community, that it is a skill that needs to be learned by

everyone to some degree in order to survive, and that the

smallest venture can have world-wide reach.

SIFE has chapters at 797 colleges nationwide and more than

500 schools overseas, providing opportunities for students

who come from modest backgrounds and have little exposure to

big business. It has spread to elite campuses such as Notre

Dame and Harvard in recent years, but its roots are in

smaller schools in the Midwest and South.

Yet its mission--igniting an early passion for business

innovation and leadership by challenging students to launch

projects in their communities--is global in scope and

sophisticated in its approach. ``We encourage students to

take what they learn in an economics class and use it to show

others how free enterprise can improve lives,'' says Alvin

Rohrs, president and chief executive of SIFE.

Last year, five SIFE students from the University of Ghana,

in Accra, taught 20 villages in Kpomkpo how to make soap from

locally available coconut and palm oil. Production began

after three weeks of training, with help from Ghana's women's

ministry. The initial trainees have since trained others,

launching a cottage industry.

Founded 23 years ago, SIFE received much-needed help from

Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and his then-chief operating

officer, Jack Shewmaker, in the mid-1980s. ``It developed

just like Wal-Mart, in small towns that didn't have a lot of

other resources,'' says Jack Kahl, former CEO of Cleveland-

based

Henkel Consumer Adhesives and a longtime SIFE board member.

Over the past decade, SIFE has expanded rapidly and

recruited almost 200 executives to its board, currently

headed by Thomas Coughlin, president and CEO of Wal-Mart.

Some other companies represented on the board are 3M, Black &

Decker, Coca-Cola, AT&T, ConAgra, Nestle and Pfizer. Along

with judging regional, national and the international World

Cup SIFE competitions, board members farm talent from SIFE

teams. Some 35 percent of management trainees hired by Wal-

Mart are SIFE alumni. RadioShack in another heavy recruiter.

Luke Robinson, who last year earned an M.B.A. from La

Sierra University, Riverside, Calif., says his experience as

president of the school's SIFE team from 2000 to 2002 altered

his ambitions. ``I went from being a back-office, analytic

accounting type to being quite at ease in front of large

crowds and wanting a front-room leadership position,''he

says.

His team, which won the World Cup championship last year,

launched more than a dozen projects, including a child-care

business course in Riverside that helped about 200 welfare

mothers establish day-care businesses; a campus cleaning

business; a cow bank in Karandi, India, which purchased 20

milking cows for families to help start a small dairy

business; and a llama bank in Peru.

``As a student you're often discounted as wet behind the

ears, but in SIFE we came up with ideas and showed they could

work,'' says Mr. Robinson, a grants manager for La Sierra's

business school and a consultant to small businesses in the

area. ``In SIFE, I got project-management experience that

lots of people don't get until they've been working for 5 or

10 years. And most beneficial of all, I learned how to talk

to people and interact with them.''

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 107) commending and supporting the efforts of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), the world's preeminent collegiate free enterprise organization, and its president, Alvin Rohrs, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 107.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 107. This resolution recognizes the unique and important opportunities provided by the international organization Students in Free Enterprise. Active on more than 1,400 college and university campuses and more than 33 countries, SIFE collegiate teams improve the quality of life and the standard of living around the world by teaching the principles of market economics, entrepreneurship, business ethnics, and personal finance success. Currently, there are over 15,000 students involved with the SIFE chapter.

Since 1975, SIFE college teams have been invited to attend leadership training programs where they learn the principles of free enterprise and develop leadership skills. Students return to their respective campuses where they conduct free enterprise outreach projects in their communities. Ultimately, the SIFE experience works to provide college and university students with the opportunity to make a difference in their local communities and develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills, skills that are important to lifelong career success.

The postsecondary education experience is enriched when students have the opportunity to apply what they have learned in the classroom to the world around them. SIFE chapters are a means by which college students can expand their knowledge of the free enterprise system, compete in international competitions, and work in their local communities.

Our Nation is facing a time of economic challenge. The growth and strength of the SIFE collegiate chapters and the escalating interest in the entrepreneurial spirit and sound business practices encourage me. Recognition is in order for the international organizations, Students in Free Enterprise, their board, and the individual chapters. I am happy to join the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) in honoring these organizations for their accomplishments. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Students in Free Enterprise for their dedication and outstanding work. SIFE provides leadership training, regional competitions, and opportunity fairs for thousands of college students.

Established in 1975, Students in Free Enterprise has rapidly grown to include more than 790 campuses nationwide, and now includes participants from 35 countries. Throughout the years and as the number of students grew, the mission of SIFE has remained the same: to provide college

and university students the best opportunity to make a difference and to develop leadership, teamwork, and communication skills through learning, practicing, and teaching the principles of free enterprise.

With the number of corporate scandals and the high levels of distrust that is emanating from the business world today, SIFE gives a light of hope that our business leaders of tomorrow will have a solid understanding of principles and values and bring them into the business world.

SIFE also encourages and demonstrates to college students the importance of community outreach. College students across the Nation participate in such programs that encourage the understanding of the responsible use of debit and credit cards and events that go into the local schools like Teach A Child About Business Week.

The Students in Free Enterprise teams are learning important lessons that will help them in their adult lives, but it is more important that these students and the SIFE teams are extending their knowledge to their families, classmates, and neighbors.

Madam Speaker, there are 25 colleges and universities in Illinois that participate and have SIFE teams. I am very proud and very pleased that two of the 25 are institutions with whom I have close and deep roots. One of them is Malcolm X College, where I have taught courses and where we hold many of our town hall meetings and other community outreach activities; and the other is Chicago State University where I was privileged to earn a master's degree and have been asked to give their commencement address this year on June 7. Both are outstanding institutions, one in my congressional district and one not.

So once again I would like to congratulate Students in Free Enterprise for providing young people with the opportunity to make a difference and providing leadership training and inspiring young people to do what is right in both their personal and business lives. This is an excellent program. I commend the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) for its introduction.

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I am pleased to be here with the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) to recognize this important institution. Free enterprise and what free enterprise means to the world is best learned at the earliest possible time, and that is exactly what Students in Free Enterprise does. It is located in my district in Springfield, Missouri, but is truly all over the world. There are over 1,400 chapters in 33 different countries; and in many of those countries, the SIFE chapter, the Students in Free Enterprise chapter, becomes the first time the door is really opened in the lives of many students to the whole idea of free enterprise, the whole idea of a competitive system and individuals who are able to move forward largely based on their own capacity and their own talents.

SIFE offers students the opportunities to develop leadership, to develop teamwork, to develop communication skills through learning, practicing, through teaching principles of free enterprise that are valuable in improving the standard of living for millions of people in the world.

SIFE chapters compete against each other in national and now even international competitions to see which chapters can come up with the most competitive ways to talk about and to expand the concepts of free enterprise. This is an idea that is supported by businesses around the globe. More than 185 top corporate executives sit on SIFE's board of directors. That board is led by Alvin Rohrs, who has given 20 years of his life toward growing this organization from literally a handful of campus units in America to 1,400 universities in 33 different countries.

SIFE teams teach important concepts through educational outreach projects. They teach market economics, entrepreneurship, personal and financial success, business ethics, and benefit their community as they plan for the future of their community.

Each year SIFE competitions are held worldwide, drawing together thousands of students, all of whom are there to honor one concept, the concept of free enterprise, the concept of capitalism, the concept that we have such a great opportunity through SIFE and many other ways to demonstrate in the world today. I am pleased to join the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) as he encourages our colleagues to adopt this resolution honoring Students in Free Enterprise.