Big Quil Enterprises

By Evan Cael
Peninsula Daily News

QUILCENE – It's a Tuesday afternoon in a Quilcene High School classroom, and students sit circled around their entrepreneurial mentors, Joe and Joy Baisch.

The students, most of them freshmen and sophomores, are hearing a lesson plan that most 15 and 16 year olds won't hear for several years, if ever.

"We didn't do too bad money-wise," says Joy Baisch of a recent shellfish dinner hosted by the Quilcene School student-run shellfish company, Big Quil Enterprises.

"We were down $300 from last year. But $300 is $300."

The atmosphere in the room appears similar to a board meeting led by a chief executive officer except that business suits are replaced by frayed jeans and T-shirts.

For the past three years, with help from a $220,000 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant, the Baisch's, acting as business managers, have been shepherding Quilcene School District students through the dollars and sense of operating a shellfish company, coined Big Quil Enterprises.

Joy was an original stockholder and gereral manager of Red Robbin Restaurant in 1967, which now has locations up and down the West Coast.

Joe and Joy started the first document shredding company in Seattle in 1981 called American Data Guard and sold it in 1992 when they moved to Brinnon.

They now own and run a bed and breakfast in Brinnon.

Big Quil Enterprises, comprised of about 50 students, operates in partnership with the Quilcene School District and the 4-H Club, which is an extension of the Washington State University Learning Center.

The business leases a beach on Quilcene Bay, and the students involved harvest oysters and clams.
The harvested shellfish, of which Quilcene is nationally and internationally famous for producing, are then processed by Shelton-based Taylor Shellfish Co.

The students then prepare and sell the shellfish at various festivals throughout the region, such as the Brinnon Shrimp Fest and the Quilcene Fair, and other dining events.

Pamela Roberts, 4-H coordinator and former Principal of Quilcene School District, works closely with the business and sees it as broadening the scope of the students' perspectives and making available to them enhanced opportunities.
"We're hoping that through this initiative that these kids who live in a remote location realize they can be players on an international scale," said Roberts.

Because of the partnership with Taylor Shellfish Co., many of the shellfish, in great demand throughout the world, make it to the far reaches of the globe.

"It's been pretty cool, because our oysters that we harvest get shipped around the world, and to Europe and stuff," said Big Quil Enterprises Shelbi Thompson, 15.

Like any business, the time the students put into harvesting and working on the operation, they are paid for.
"It gives the community a different look at how students are, that we're not all trouble makers," said Big Quil Enterprises Co-President Marissa Suarez, 15.

"It's an opportunity to get out and get involved in the community, and it looks good on a college resume."
The Baisches agree and see the company as a way to teach and inspire the students to realize they can go to college and become successful in business or any field they are interested in.

"The hardest part is getting the kids to realize their opinions really do matter," said Joy.

Quilcene School District Assistant Principal Jim Betteley says Big Quil Enterprises is an extremely positive opportunity for the kids, many of whom come from an economically depressed background.

He said the business and the school district have formed a symbiotic relationship.

"We're integrating it into the fabric of the learning opportunity," Betteley said of the business education of Big Quil Enterprises.

"It's exposing them to a career path that pays a pretty good wage."
Joe and Joy Baisch do not see Big Quil Enterprises as being limited to shellfish.
That's only the beginning, they explain.

Quilcene, with I-5 running through it, is on the way to many North Olympic Peninsula tourist stops.
An estimated 2.1 million vehicles speed by Quilcene on I-5 every year, said Joe Baisch.

"As we continue our work with Big Quil Enterprises, we're going to expand into this tourist thing," said Joe.
"We'll make an organized effort of stopping tourists and getting dollars out of them."

In the Quilcene High School classroom, Joe picks the brains of the students sitting around him, running through ideas of how to accomplish this.

"One of the things that we all have to internalize is our community is a year-round playground," Joe tells the students.
"You can't just think of the spring and summer. We've got to seize the opportunity on this, guys, and we've got to put our heads together."

They discussed renting mountain bikes and kayaks and other outdoor-related rentals.
Joe asked the students if they thought it was about time to join the Brinnon-Quilcene Chamber of Commerce.
"What do they discuss there?" asked Suarez.

"Some of the same stuff that we've been discussing," replied Joe.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant expires this year, which would run the risk of crippling the operation of Big Quil Enterprises.

But with the business just getting off the ground, the Baisches aren't letting that happen.
On Friday, representatives of Northwest Area Foundation, based in St. Paul, Minn., were in Quilcene interviewing those involved with Big Quil Enterprises.

The business is being looked at to receive a $100,000 grant that will allow Big Quil Enterprise to expand and eventually become self-sufficient.

The Baisches are hoping the Northwest Area Foundation, an organization focused on reducing community poverty, sees something valuable in the work Big Quil Enterprises is doing.

Regardless, the students realize they are part of something unique.
"There aren't very many schools that have anything like this," said Suarez.