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WIRED initiative offers help to entrepreneurs
By DUANE M. ELLING
George Puia believes that gazelles will figure prominently in Michigan’s economic future. Not the four-legged, antelope variety, but rather those men and women whose desire to create and launch new companies is accompanied by personal drive, creativity, and a willingness to engage both the risks and opportunities found in an open market.
“They are often referred to as ‘gazelles’ because when it comes to business, they’re incredibly agile, ready to move fast and leap high,” Puia said. “Their tendency toward innovation and a true entrepreneurial spirit has historically been — and will continue to be — key to Michigan’s economy.”
Puia is director of the Global Business Initiative at Saginaw Valley State University. His insights into how small- and medium-sized businesses can succeed within a global marketplace have helped shape SVSU’s Accelerated Entrepreneurship Initiative (AEI).
The AEI coordinates the services and resources of 20 community partners to help promising entrepreneurs in Michigan create, market and grow new businesses. The partnership also works with existing firms to access new markets, helps inventors make their products commercially viable, seeks to increase self-employment and retraining opportunities for the state’s displaced workers, and engages schools — from K-12 through college — in providing entrepreneurship education.
The ultimate goals are to strengthen families and communities, and to expand economic opportunities throughout the state.
The AEI is one of 10 economic and workforce development projects to be launched as the result of a successful bid in 2006 by the Mid-Michigan Innovation Team (MMIT) to secure $15 million in federal Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) grants. The U.S. Department of Labor made a total of $195 million in three-year WIRED grants to 13 regions across the country to develop new industries and job opportunities.
The MMIT, one of two collaborations in Michigan to receive WIRED funding, is a 13-county consortium focused on developing a unified economic strategy for the region. The team has leveraged an additional $35 million from project partners.
Mott Foundation program staff aided in the application process by convening key stakeholders. Mott also has provided support to several MMIT partner organizations.
The region served by the MMIT is anchored by Flint, Lansing and Saginaw, once known for its extensive General Motors manufacturing. But decades-long struggles in the domestic auto industry have sparked economic challenges throughout the region.
The AEI aims to help Michigan’s entrepreneurs diversify the region’s economy and promote revitalization.
Key to that process, says Harry Leaver, is “building a network of resources that can be folded around the entrepreneur, providing him or her with the facilities, expertise and other supports needed to get a project off the ground.”
Leaver is executive director for the Center for Business and Economic Development (CBED) at SVSU. The center, which opened in 2003, works within the AEI to provide and expand those resources via the university’s faculty, students and programs.
Specifically, the CBED’s programs help local entrepreneurs and existing businesses explore and develop the commercial viability of new inventions and ideas, as well as test and improve products and prepare them for market. They also work with area manufacturers to strengthen their profitability through employee training and support. Finally, they engage local entrepreneurs and SVSU students and faculty in the incubation of emerging industries, such as bio-technology and advanced manufacturing.
That comprehensive support has greatly benefited GANTEC Inc. The company, launched in 2001, is exploring agricultural and commercial uses for products derived from the African neem tree. Naturally occurring chemicals found in the tree’s seeds may serve as effective and environmentally friendly pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers.
GANTEC staff is working to extract, concentrate and test the oil found in the neem seeds for agricultural use.
The CBED, says Richard Olson, president of GANTEC, has provided his firm with “a real home and family” with which to do that work.
For example, the company found laboratory space for product research and development at the Midland-based Mid-Michigan Innovation Center. This private, nonprofit organization — and CBED partner — also helps individuals and small start-up companies access affordable financing and capital, and explore strategies for producing and marketing new products.
“It can be a real challenge for entrepreneurs to come up with the supports needed for complex research and development,” Olson said. “Local resources like the innovation center make those supports available, which, over the long run, will help to create business and economic opportunities throughout the region.”
The CBED and its partners also are helping promising entrepreneurs launch relationships with existing companies, engage in mentoring relationships with experienced entrepreneurs, and connect with local inventors whose products warrant commercial development and distribution.
SVSU’s Puia recognizes that assembling even the most comprehensive array of supports is no guarantee that an entrepreneur will succeed. Some still struggle to find markets for their products, while others require significant time and resources to grow their businesses and create jobs.
“But history tells us that sometimes these ‘risky’ ventures — such as the development of computers, automobiles and other technologies — can launch entire industries,” Puia said. “It’s that potential payoff of creating new jobs and economic opportunities in Michigan that makes the immediate challenges worthwhile.”
Educating the state’s young people about the benefits and challenges of entrepreneurship is also an AEI focus. For example, faculty from various departments at SVSU came together in 2006 to create an entrepreneurship minor in the school’s business program, Leaver said, so that “students, regardless of their primary area of study, can take their creative talent, make it economically viable and perhaps even create jobs in their community.”
In its first two semesters, 65 students added the entrepreneurship coursework to their studies.
SVSU also recently partnered with neighboring Delta College, a two-year school, to help three area school districts — Bay, Midland and Saginaw — create entrepreneurial awareness and skill development curriculums for students in K-12 settings. The new programs are expected to be launched this year.
Inspiring a belief in future economic opportunity may spark in young people a deeper connection to Michigan, Leaver says. As a result, they may choose to stay in the region, rather than take their talents to some other part of the country.
“Keeping their ideas, energy and creativity here is key to the state’s long-term stability,” he said.
Local and regional partnerships are also proving vital.
In 2006 the AEI joined forces with the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research — a Mott grantee — to help manufacturers with a history of producing quality parts for the domestic automotive industry move their products into global markets.
The AEI is also working with the Saginaw Bay Sustainable Business Partnership to ensure that future entrepreneurs and other firms balance issues of profitability with environmentally responsible business practices.
“These collaborations encourage creativity for generating jobs, growth and sustainability in mid-Michigan,” said Irma Zuckerberg, director of the MMIT. “Ultimately, that creativity will benefit the entire state and country.”
Puia says public and private partnerships, including the philanthropic community, remain vital to Michigan’s economic future.
Zuckerberg agrees:
“Like true entrepreneurs, foundations understand that risks and opportunities often go hand-in-hand. I believe that embracing the dynamics of that approach will be key to Michigan’s future success.”