Michael Verchot receives UWAA Distinguished Service Award
Michael Verchot receives the 2022 UWAA Distinguished Service Award for his work on behalf of the UW Consulting and Business Development Center.
Michael Verchot
The UWAA presents Michael Verchot with the 2022 Distinguished Service Award. This honor from the UW Alumni Association recognizes extraordinary volunteer leadership within the UWAA and those who embody the UW’s values and public service mission.
As co-founder and director of UW’s Consulting and Business Development Center, Verchot, ’95, has helped generate millions of dollars in revenue and create or retain thousands of jobs in the Puget Sound area. The center provides courses and support from student consulting teams for hundreds of businesses owned by people of color, women and other underserved communities. It also places graduate students on the boards of area nonprofits. Verchot has also spread the center’s model to 12 other cities through the Ascend program.
The center grew out of Verchot’s work in pursuit of his MBA in the 1990s with marketing professors Thaddeus Spratlen and David Gautschi, who were exploring why small businesses owned by people of color underperformed while others thrived and what the UW could do to help. “Michael is a champion for creating opportunities, access and equity through business education,” says Aggie Clark, ’86, ’99, co-chair of the Center’s board of directors and past president of the UWAA. “Michael is an inspirational leader who magnifies the impacts that the University of Washington makes in our community and beyond.”