For the past three years, Justin Wolske has brought his passion to educate entrepreneurs to the Downtown Long Beach Alliance’s (DLBA) Economic Development Committee. Wolske, who loves downtown city centers and has lived in such big cities as New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston, is determined to contribute to the revitalization of Downtown Long Beach.
“As a Long Beach transplant, I learned of Downtown’s recent resurgence,” Wolske said. “I hope I can contribute to this progress by helping our small business owners and entrepreneurs build some resilient resources so they can establish a stronger Downtown foothold.”
Education is Wolske’s specialty; He runs the online education platform CASEWORX and serves as Director of Partnerships for Yellowbrick, another online platform which is focused on the creative fields. Both platforms emphasize “real-world” learning,” said Wolske, “which relies upon “experience and emotional intelligence. Entrepreneurship is an incredibly risky and lonely journey, and entrepreneurship education is hard to come by. Getting small business owners sorely-needed training is a passion of mine.”
To learn more about Wolske’s perspective and approach to education, read his article, published in 2020 in the online magazine In Medias Res.
Wolske hails from Hobart, Indiana, which is about 30 minutes from Chicago. After earning a bachelor’s degree in History and Philosophy from Indiana University, he moved to Los Angeles in 2003 to earn a master’s degree in Directing and Film Production from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Downtown Long Beach has turned out to be a great home base for Wolske. “Besides the perfect weather, it’s a place with a deep history that’s in search of its next chapter,” he said. “Downtown is working to redefine its relationship with the city at large. That’s always an exciting project to work on.
“I encourage Downtown stakeholders to find something they love about Downtown, such as the small business owners, the parks, or the live events, and then work to get on a DLBA Committee that has the most immediate impact on those people or places,” added Wolske.
Wolske jokingly describes himself as a “grumpy middle-aged man,” but that doesn’t slow him down at all when he isn’t working. He is a 25-year practitioner of mixed martial arts (MMA), and after a tough training session or hard day at the office he likes to unwind by watching MMA fights at “one of the many, many fine bars in Long Beach.”