Building relationships between Moses Lake and Japan, South Korea

MOSES LAKE — It’s been said that Moses Lake punches well above its weight internationally for a small American town.

Sara Richards, a sixth-grade English teacher at Chief Moses Middle School and the Moses Lake School District’s exchange program coordinator, hopes to keep that going.

So Richards, with a little help from the Port of Moses Lake, is forming Bridges International to facilitate the exchange of middle school, high school and college students between Korea, Japan and Grant County.

“I know exactly the things we have to get to make this happen,” Richards said.

Bridges will initially help facilitate student exchanges between the cities of Toyoyama and Komaki in Japan and Gunpo in South Korea. In part, the focus will be on Japanese and Korean university students interested in studying English, aviation and pilot training at Big Bend Community College, though Richards’ involvement also means that a group of Japanese middle school students may be making their way to Moses Lake next year.

“We’re looking at no more than 10 middle school students staying here 10-14 days,” Richards said. “There are a lot of discussions about when, since their school calendar is very different from ours.”

Richards initially hopes the first Japanese middle schoolers can come to Moses Lake in May 2020, not long after the start of the Japanese school year in April.

The program would be different from the annual exchange of high school students between Moses Lake and Yonezawa, and would focus on fostering and maintaining business connections.

It would also only work one way right now, bringing Japanese and Korean students to Grant County, Richards said. However, in the future, she hopes local students will also eventually make their way to Japan and South Korea at some point.

Komaki is a city of around 150,000 north of Nagoya and home to Nagoya Airport, which has a “sister airport” relationship with the Port of Moses Lake. Toyoyama, a town of only slightly more than 15,000 people south of Komaki, is where Mitsubishi Aircraft builds the SpaceJet.

According to Port Executive Director Jeffrey Bishop, the long history of the Japan Agricultural Training Program at Big Bend Community College, as well as the several decades Japan Air Lines spent training pilots here and Mitsubishi Aircraft’s current testing and certification program for its SpaceJet, mean it’s hard to travel in Japan without meeting someone who doesn’t have some kind of connection to Moses Lake.

“We got to thinking about those connections — school, work, family — all those kids that were here (in the past) are getting up there (in age),” Bishop said. “And we’re not re-forming those connections.”

So the Port, which has been working hard to develop and foster “sister city” connections with towns and cities in Japan and Korea that are centers of aviation and manufacturing, decided that Bridges International would be one way the port could help improve the region’s connections to Asia.

The Port also sees exchanges between young people and businesses in the U.S., Japan and South Korea as another way of boosting the local economy and eventually helping to train and develop workers for high tech industry both here and in Asia, as well as spur more international investment in the region.

Currently, foreign investment in Grant County is directly and indirectly responsible for 3,600 jobs that pay an average of $57,000 — well over the average Grant County wage of $40,000.

“The Port is in it for the long haul,” said Richard Hanover, director of business development for the Port. “The payout is 15-20 years down the road.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com