For more than a decade, the Yakima Business Certificate Program has helped people across Central Washington develop the business and leadership skills they need to take their next professional step.

The six-week program, led by the Foster School of Business Consulting and Business Development Center (CBDC) and taught by Foster faculty, is free to participants.

More than 1,200 people have completed the program since it launched in 2015. Many have taken on greater leadership responsibilities within their organizations, while others have been inspired to continue their education.

For JD Bewley, who completed the Yakima Business Certificate Program while managing a local McDonald’s franchise, the program’s accessibility was a big part of its appeal. Students take classes once a week, either online or in person, while continuing to work.

“Not everyone can step away from work and family responsibilities for years to get a traditional degree,” Bewley says. “That doesn’t mean there’s any lack of ambition or potential here. The Yakima Business Certificate Program meets people where they are.”

A partnership built around local needs

A little over two hours east of Seattle, Yakima sits at the center of one of Washington’s most productive agricultural regions.

As you cross the Cascade Mountains, the landscape changes quickly from the city to orchards, vineyards, and fields stretching across the valley. The region is known for its agriculture, outdoor recreation, and food culture. Visitors can go fishing and rafting in the Yakima River Canyon before doing a wine tour at one of the area’s 90 wineries. And, those of us who enjoy a Honeycrisp or Gala might know that the greater region produces roughly 67% of the country’s apples.

The wider Yakima metropolitan area and county are home to more than 250,000 people, many of whom work in industries tied to local agriculture. That economy creates a particular need for regional stakeholders to develop and invest in the people already living in the Yakima Valley.

Dan Fulton, a longtime advisory board member of the Yakima Business Certificate Program and former president and CEO of Weyerhaeuser, saw that need firsthand. After years of living in Seattle, Fulton and his wife moved to the Yakima Valley, where they established Angiolina Farm, a sustainable vineyard.

He became involved with other local business leaders, many of them in the region’s fruit and agricultural industries. They shared a concern that their companies needed employees who could grow into management and leadership roles, but recruiting experienced talent from Seattle or Spokane wasn’t a realistic solution.

“We needed to provide education and training to our employees so they could grow within those companies and take on more management opportunities,” Fulton says.

At the time, there was nothing like the Yakima Business Certificate Program in the community.

The Kershaw brothers, Bob and Ed, whose Kershaw Cos. grew fruit in the Yakima Valley, helped turn that need into an idea. They reached out to the University of Washington, where Michael Verchot, Founding Director of the Consulting and Business Development Center, answered the call.

Consulting AND Business Development Center Develops Business Training for Yakima Valley

Working with local business leaders and Foster faculty, Verchot and the Consulting and Business Development Center developed a six-week program that would bring Foster faculty to the Yakima Valley each week to teach business, management, and finance to local employees, at no cost to participants.

Eleven years later, the partnership remains at the heart of the Yakima Business Certificate Program, which is still one of a kind.

But while agriculture helped inspire the program, the students in the classroom now represent the broader economy of Central Washington. Agricultural employees sit alongside bankers, nonprofit specialists, government workers, and people working in distribution, manufacturing, aerospace, and health care. Regardless of industry, the certificate program equips emerging leaders with the financial and strategic skills to take on greater responsibility within their organizations.

Learn today and apply it at work tomorrow

Each year, local business leaders and the program’s advisory board help identify the educational needs of Yakima Valley employees and employers, and the Consulting and Business Development Center works with Foster faculty to develop the program and shape the curriculum around those needs.

Students attend class with Foster faculty once a week for three hours over six weeks. They can attend online or in person at the Perry Technical Institute in Yakima. The program includes two certificates. The fundamentals course is open to anyone, while the advanced course requires a bachelor’s degree or completion of the fundamentals course.

Foster faculty endeavor to give students the tools they can put to work immediately. Fundamentals Certificate students explore topics like organizational leadership, strategic decision-making, marketing and branding, and financial management. Advanced Certificate students build on those skills through coursework in human resources, team leadership, customer relations, and managerial accounting.

The goal is to learn something new today and apply it at work tomorrow.

Christina Nichols, Associate Professor of Accounting at the Foster School, has taught in the Yakima Business Certificate Program for several years. Like many Foster faculty who return to teach in Yakima year after year, she sees how quickly students connect classroom concepts to their work.

“I was excited to work with business owners and employees who could immediately apply the skills they learned to their work,” Nichols says. “It has been rewarding to see students connect the accounting terminology or tools directly to ways they can apply them at work right now.”

That immediate application also shows up in the program’s evaluations. 97% of participants in the 2026 program evaluations reported improved individual job performance, while 98% said the course led them to take on new initiatives and projects at work.

Making business education more accessible

The format, location, delivery, and free tuition of the Yakima Business Certificate Program all remove barriers that might otherwise keep someone from pursuing additional education.

The program is made possible through the ongoing partnership between the Foster School, the Consulting and Business Development Center, local employers, including Washington Fruit and Domex Superfresh Growers, donors, and community partners, whose combined efforts ensure the opportunity remains accessible to participants.

“Program participants have families and many are living in multi-generational households, and they want to stick close to their home network,” Fulton says. “Some of these students haven’t had the opportunity to pursue higher education in the past, but they have the intelligence and the work ethic, and they’re grabbing onto the opportunity.”

And so, every week, Foster faculty cross the mountain pass to ensure future leaders have local access to business education. At the same time, those future leaders dedicate personal time to building business skills that can help grow their careers, contribute to the regional economy, and potentially discover new opportunities for professional advancement.

Learning beyond your own organization

The mix of industries and perspectives in the classroom was one of the things Bewley experienced firsthand when he enrolled while managing a local McDonald’s franchise.

His organization was growing, and he wanted to become a better leader for his employees.

“Our organization was continuing to grow. If I expected growth from my team, then I needed to grow as well,” Bewley says.

The Yakima Business Certificate Program challenged him to look beyond his own organization for ideas.

“The program gave me the opportunity to learn from other leaders and gave me a different perspective,” Bewley says. “It helped me identify gaps in our organization and how to fill them. I wouldn’t have found that out if I stayed in our bubble.”

He now sends managers from McDonald’s franchises through the certificate program together. With employees spread across 14 locations throughout the region, the shared experience provides a common foundation and strengthens relationships across the organization.

“My responsibility is to develop leaders. I can’t run all 14 locations without having strong leadership,” Bewley says. “I want to invest in our people. We send our managers together so that they learn and grow together.”

Bewley’s approach is one example of how local employers invest in the program and in the people they see as future leaders. Some organizations regularly identify employees with leadership potential and encourage them to participate, while others share the opportunity more broadly with their employees.

Bewley also believes that leadership development shouldn’t wait until someone receives a promotion.

“Leadership isn’t something that happens after you’re promoted,” he says. “The Yakima Business Certificate Program develops employees’ financial thinking, strategy skills, leadership, and confidence. When our organization is ready to grow and open new locations, our employees will be ready to step into those roles. We develop the person first, and the position will be there for them.”

Investing in local talent, strengthening local businesses

The Yakima Business Certificate Program has evolved considerably since those first conversations among local business leaders and the Foster Consulting and Business Development Center.

The online option has expanded access beyond Yakima itself. Its participants now come from across Central and Eastern Washington, including the Tri-Cities, Wenatchee, Moses Lake, Sunnyside, Grandview, Ellensburg, and Prescott, and represent several industries.

The Consulting and Business Development Center and the certificate program’s advisory board continue to work closely with Foster faculty, bringing local employers’ perspectives into conversations about the curriculum and the skills their organizations need. That collaboration helps the Yakima Business Certificate Program continue to respond to the region’s changing needs.

While the program has evolved, its mission has always been to invest in the people who are already here.

“Having home-grown programs is important to this community,” Fulton says. “Students build their network with local people from their own companies. Their network is in the Yakima Valley.”

Hundreds of graduates now make up that impressive network.

Fulton sees many of them each spring at the program’s graduation ceremony, where students celebrate alongside their families, faculty, and alumni. He also sees the impact on employers who continue to send managers through the Yakima Business Certificate Program and on the graduates who proudly display their University of Washington certificates at work.

Building a stronger future for Yakima

“We don’t have a shortage of potential here,” Bewley reflects. “The Yakima Business Certificate Program is another way to positively reinforce the educational and developmental piece and offer more leadership opportunities to the talented people in the region.”

After 15 years of calling Yakima home, Bewley, a San Diego native, sees the value of developing talent close to home.

“In Yakima, your impact goes further,” he says. “We have a real sense of community, and we have a responsibility to continue building the community here. We want to build it better than we found it.”