Warren Miller and Missoula’s New Entrepreneurs

By Jonathan Weber, 1-12-09

Ski film legend Warren Miller, who at age 84 continues to write for the NewWest.Net Snowblog and other outlets, likes to tell the story of how he lived in a tiny trailer in the Sun Valley parking lot and started his film career with a camera bought on borrowed money. In fact, his childhood and teen years are full of stories of how he made a few cents - and eventually a few bucks - on various entrepreneurial ventures.

That experience helped lead Miller and his wife Laurie to focus their charity, the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation, on teaching entrepreneurship to kids. In February, the first Montana program of the Foundation will kick off at C.S. Porter Middle School, with the aim of teaching not only the nuts and bolts, but also the values of being your own boss and building your own business.

The 10-week after-school class, offered in partnership with the Flagship program, involves students actually starting a business of some kind and learning the basics of profit and loss, marketing and advertising, and how to invest for the future.

“I learned a lot in the Depression,” Miller said Monday at a City Club presentation, referring to his early years. “None of that is taught in any school district.”

Miller framed entrepreneurship as part of a “constant search for freedom,” somewhat akin to the freedom you feel on a ski hill. The point of the class - and the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation - is not so much to instill a love of money or professional success as to learn the self-reliance, ethics, and social skills needed to start and run a business. Freedom, on one key level, is about being your own boss.

Alex Apostle, superintendent of Missoula Public Schools, said the program fit well with the mission of helping students “compete successfully in post-high-school education, and in the economy.” He said the program presented a great opportunity to “get students involved in the real world, and talk to students about how to be successful.”

Laurie Miller said the Missoula initiative began with a conversation she had with former state school superintendent Linda McCulloch, who was very interested in seeing the program come to Montana. The Miller’s live most of the year on an island in the Puget Sound, and their program - which includes a curriculum and relies on professionals teaching for a modest fee - has been implemented in their home town and in Seattle.