The inaugural meeting of the Greater Washington Wrestling Business Network (GWWBN) met at the Tower Club last night in Tysons Corner, Virginia. The event was sponsored by the Meltzer Benefit Group.
There were 200 former wrestlers in attendance at the event, along with current college coaches from American, Maryland, George Mason, Minnesota and Virginia Tech.

GWWBN is a non-profit group formed to mobilize the wrestling community for business, social and personal purposes in a proactive fashion to support and prosper.
The group did just that with the theme of the evening being to completely engage the business community to support wrestling, while showing the economic impact that these former wrestlers who are now leaders have. The goal is to mobilize the group to not only support each other in business but to also give back to the sport.

Congressman Jim Jordan a two-time NCAA Champion and NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer were the evening’s guest speakers.

Congressman Jordan spoke on the fact that our country, more than ever, needs the core values developed through wrestling (commitment, perseverance, self reliance, integrity, honor, discipline). He also stated that discipline is doing what you do not want to do when you do not want to do it.

NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer pointed out that, the sustainability of our youth, high school and intercollegiate programs are reliant on the support of the community around them.

“On behalf of the founding members of the Greater Washington Wrestling Business Network, I want to thank everyone for making this inaugural event a huge success. It was very encouraging to see so many wrestling alumni in very high leadership positions come out to support the event. This will undoubtedly provide us with the necessary momentum to significantly grow the GWWBN membership and spread wrestling’s influence throughout the region,” said founder John Licata.

In addition GWWBN held a youth wrestling clinic over the weekend to help give back to the local youth programs, the local colleges played a vital role in this endeavor. The attendance at the clinic shows that they have found their niche in the area with 350 youth wrestlers in attendance, which was put together by board member Wade Schalles.

The founding Board Members of the GWWBN are Darran Anthony, Eric Brugel, Keith Burgess, Kevin Colabucci, Derek Donahue, Michael Lerner, John Licata, Alan Meltzer, Wade Schalles, and Dan Wotring.
The next event to be sponsored by the GWWBN will be held in January, for more information visit their website http://www.gwwbn.org/gwwbn/ or join the Facebook page.