Our History

Ronald Nischwitz is a former Major League Baseball relief pitcher who played from 1961 to 1963, and again in 1965, for the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians. Following his playing career, he served as the head coach of Dayton's Wright State University baseball team from 1975 to 2004. In 1987, Ron was asked to come to a program in the state of Washington to mentor a group of high school students through a business simulation called Washington Business Week.

This experience was an extremely powerful one for Ron and upon returning to Ohio, he gathered colleagues including the Ohio Small Business Council, the Ohio Collectors Association, and several other interested Ohio business firms and organizations who laid the groundwork to start an equally impactful learning experience for high school students here as the Ohio Business Week Foundation.

The Ohio Business Week program is a grassroots volunteer effort of the state’s business community to share with the next generation of Ohio's leaders the concepts and practices to be successful in business. The Foundation launched the first week-long program at Ashland University on July 9, 1989 attracting 97 students from 30 different Ohio counties. Since 1989, the Foundation has impacted over 6500 students through 51 camps on seven college campuses across the state.