KCBA - Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz - News Weather-Big help for small business
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California State University, Monterey Bay invites the community to attend the grand opening of its Small Business Development Center, an innovative program that provides counseling and training to small businesses or people who are trying to start them.
The center is located at 425 Belden St. in Gonzales, where the grand opening will be held at 3 p.m., Monday, Nov. 30.
The center serves the area along the Highway 101 corridor from Gilroy to King City and provides critical services to small business owners, helping them create jobs and solidify the local economy. Services provided by CSU Monterey Bay's center compliment and expand on the services already being provided to Monterey and Santa Cruz counties' coastal communities by the Central Coast SBDC hosted by Cabrillo College in Aptos.
The centers help people develop business plans, secure financing, set up financial systems, plan for expansion, project cash flow, determine technology needs and provide a variety of other services helpful to small businesses. In addition to the free one-on-one consulting, the centers offer a variety of workshops and seminars. Free workshops have already been offered on e-mail marketing and access to capital.
The nationwide program of Small Business Development Centers is funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The centers are usually located at colleges or universities. CSUMB's center comes under the auspices of the regional SBDC office housed at the University of California Merced.
"We are confident this network will support and promote increased economic growth in our entire region," said Dr. Marylou Shockley, chair of CSUMB's School of Business. "These centers offer vital support and training and are a natural addition to our efforts to help area and regional businesses. The university is well-positioned to provide leadership to the region's small businesses."
University faculty members make up about half of the 20 people available to give entrepreneurs free advice. "We've got quite a large skill set" of counselors, said Andrea Zeller-Nield, associate director of the center. Some of the counselors have knowledge of key local industries, such as wine and agriculture.
More information about the SBDC is available at http://ucmsbdc.ecenterdirect.com/ or www.sba.gov/sbdc.
