Washington Business Winter-Spring 2014 | Page 40

business backgrounder | industry The Internet — It May Catch On Tacoma website builder SiteCrafting, founded in the early days of the web, is still helping people navigate the rough-and-tumble online world. Jason Hagey SiteCrafting, one of the Northwest’s leading web design firms, started out as a side project for Brian Forth, an elementary school teacher who wanted to help students learn about the web. In 1995, when some educators were still debating whether students should be allowed to use the Internet, a young teacher at St. Charles Borromeo School in Tacoma assembled a group of fifth-graders to show the grownups the way forward. The “Techsperts,” a