The 1990s were a great time for many manufacturers, including Kent County’s Cascade Engineering, yet its founder and chairman felt the company could do more to provide for its community. In an effort to provide local welfare recipients with jobs, Fred Keller put a van pool together to transport workers from Grand Rapids to the Cascade facility. While a combination of factors soon ended the effort, the vision stayed strong at Cascade — a vision of doing more to lift people out of poverty and provide them with a career path.

A failed attempt at something  small laid the foundation to succeed at something many times greater — the Welfare to Career (W2C) program.