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Jim Boylson - Ethiopia
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Jim Boylson, Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia (1962-1964), was nominated by UCLA's Africa Studies Center professors to be in the first Peace Corps group sent to Ethiopia. Since then, his career in community economic development has taken him to 65 countries on four continents.
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Jim Boylson was in the Peace Corps from 1962 -1964 in Ethiopia. His group was personally requested by Emperor Haile Selassie to be teachers in that country, under the aegis of the Ministry of Education. He was assigned as a social science teacher at middle and secondary school levels. He has returned to Africa since, and went back to Ethiopia and Kenya earlier this year, to introduce a new, non-chemical water purification system.
He was motivated to enter the Peace Corp when he got a telegram from Sargent Shiver, the first Director of the Corps. Jim was one of a handful of Volunteers who entered the Corps after serving in the military, and he had already accepted another job when the telegram arrived. He gave up the job for the opportunity to go to Africa. He met the late US Senator Paul Tsongas, and was inspired by their joint interest in community development work and experiences in Africa. Jim was also inspired by people from all walks of life in Ethiopia, many of whom he still maintains friendships and contacts with.
Jim has been an “entrepreneur” since he was nine years old, working in the family business. He has formed many companies over the years, and retired from his energy management and environmental systems consulting firm in 1999.
He is now an agent for the group that developed a non-chemical water purification system, The World Health Alliance International. Jim has also formed a for-profit company and a non-profit organization to market the system to the private sector, to developing nations and humanitarian aid organizations. He is also engaged in creating many village micro-businesses that can earn money by making components for a non-chemical water purification system when government import approvals are finalized.
Jim considers himself a “life-long” social entrepreneur, “a person who takes entrepreneurial skills and uses them in either the FPO or NPO systems, to do well by doing good” – i.e., generating jobs, revenue and capital, while improving lives.
His advice to entrepreneurs: “Find unmet needs and use your skills to fill them. Apply your skills and assets to build a business or organization in that niche that is harmonious with who you are and what you want to do. And transfer what you know to others, to create a multiplier effect.”
CLICK on the player above to listen to his interview.
