SBDC
ONE-STOP BUSINESS GUIDANCE, TRAINING
AND INFORMATION
 “There is no reason to do it yourself,” says Al Beach, director of the Cedar Rapids Small Business Development Center (SBDC) hosted by Kirkwood Community College. The Center is a must for people thinking about starting their own business, as Al and his colleagues have a wide variety of expertise to offer.
Al Beach has had an entrepreneurial spirit all his life and helped Teleconnect grow from infancy to a $200 million-a-year business. Now, Al and his staff are available full-time to the benefit the small business community. They help you learn how to start, grow, and run your own small business. Located at Kirkwood Training and Outreach Service near Carlos O'Kelley's on First Avenue in Cedar Rapids, the SBDC office is one of the 1,000 service centers across the U.S. As Al explains, “we are here to counsel, educate, and provide all kinds of information to both start-up and existing businesses.”
Meet Al Beach: Cedar Rapid's SBDC Director
Al Beach is a Marion native, University of Iowa Business School alumni, and a self-described “marketing guy” by nature. While in his first stint in management at Maytag in Georgia, he received a call from Bell Telephone in Waterloo, Iowa. They brought him back to Iowa and launched him into a nearly 30-year career in telecommunications. For most of his career, Al was involved in marketing, and in building and growing telecom companies.
When the telecom bubble burst, Al became an independent consultant and co-founded the Eastern Iowa Enterprise Council (EIEC) to assist entrepreneurs (The Cedar Rapids group is now known as the Entrepreneurial Development Center or EDC).
Al found a great deal of satisfaction in helping others, so when he was asked to serve as a counselor at the SBCD in 2005, he was pleased. Stepping in as Director of the SBDC in 2007, Al was honored to follow in the footsteps of Steve Sprague, his distinguished predecessor and 14-year Director of SBDC, who now serves as a Marion City Council member.
What does the Cedar Rapids SBDC provide for you?
First, your local SBDC offers an Iowa perspective. There are 15 Small Business Development Centers in Iowa. Iowa State University is the “oversight” institution in the state. The University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa are also SBDC sites. The other twelve offices are located at area community colleges.
In addition to joining with SCORE® to co-sponsor the recommended class on How to Really Start Your Own Business, your local SBDC provides other services and aids for small business.
 “Practical advice for businesses,” is what Al Beach says he is most proud of providing to business people. “Our greatest strengths are in the areas of general business counseling, market research, marketing, accounting, and real estate.”
In addition, the Cedar Rapids SBDC maintains a small library of business publications, which is supplemented by the Kirkwood Community College library. The SBDC can also advise you on the educational curriculum at Kirkwood and recommend classes you might be interested in for your business.
How SBDC and SCORE® complement one another...
Established in 1976, SBDC's have been described as an “extension service for small business.” An initiative of the federal government, SBCD is the largest and most successful management and technical assistance program for small businesses in the country.
Both the SBDC and SCORE® are affiliated with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and they strive to work together and complement one another’s efforts. But there are differences in how they operate and what they offer.
SCORE® is comprised of business executives—some retired, some not—who volunteer their efforts. SCORE® volunteers provide unsurpassed “real” business experience and provide the richness of experience and wisdom that every business should have at its fingertips. They are business experts and winners who have also helped build our community. The volunteers of SCORE® are known as the “SBA's Resource Partner.”
The Small Business Development Centers, on the other hand, are partly funded by the SBA, the rest locally, and are staffed by full time business facilitation professionals who have “been there and done it.” They are also located in or near institutions of higher learning, so that education is a key element of the local SBDC's charter as is research.
At the time of SBDC's creation, the head of the Small Business Administration, Administrator Mitchell Kobelinski, stated “Much along the line of what land grant colleges have been able do to help agriculture, the [SBDC] plan envisions that universities establishing these Centers would make available to small business not only the services of the School of Business, but the full capabilities of the universities.”
In fact, the SBDC has exceeded the expectations of the SBA Administrator that helped launch it. In Cedar Rapids alone, the SBDC counsels over 250 businesses and individuals each year. The business facilitators at SBDC are available full-time, all the time.
Trying the Cedar Rapids SBDC out ...
VISIT their website to learn:
Cedar Rapids Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
Or, simply visit Al Beach at his place:
Kirkwood Community College SBDC
3375 Armar Drive
Marion, IA 52302
View Map
319-377-8256
FAX 319-398-5698
Email: al.beach@kirkwood.edu
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In addition to these SPECIAL REPORTS, our local "Success Stories" provide real examples of how SCORE® helps businesses grow. Without charge, SCORE®’s counselors—men and women from all business disciplines who have succeeded in their own right—are helping businesses across the country to not only survive but to excel.
IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE, IT IS AS SIMPLE AS GOING TO: www.scorecr.org OR calling 319-362-6405. |
