Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/21768
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Community Responds to Valentine’s Article on Development Editor’s Note: The following letters are in response to Sharon Valentine’s opinion piece titled “Wanted: Economic Development Leadership” in the Dec. 8 issue. Dear Editor: The partners of SABRE (the Strategic Alliance of Business Resources for Entrepreneurs) would like to respond to a recent editorial (“Wanted: Economic Development Leadership”) offered by Sharon Valentine in Up & Coming Weekly. We are the point committee she referred to. We have met informally for years, but formalized the relationships and partnership between the constituent organizations this last year as SABRE. We’ve met, mostly on a monthly basis as business requires, coordinating, cooperating and strengthening the community by avoiding the duplication of services she dislikes. In the last year alone, SABRE partners have accomplished great things in service to the community and the business climate here: • Between 2009-10, the Center for Economic Empowerment & Development (formerly known as the Women’s Center) had more than 1,000 one-on-one client consultations, held more than 150 workshops and events with nearly 2,500 attendees, and helped start or expand 30 businesses with nearly $300,000 in approved loans. • Just this year, the Chamber’s partnership with SCORE, Counselors to America’s Small Business, has resulted in 43 Fayetteville area startups or existing businesses receiving business counseling. • This year, the City of Fayetteville Community Development department has assisted 100 clients. • So far this year, the Small Business & Technology Development Center has served more than 140 clients in the Fayetteville area alone. • The Small Business Center at Fayetteville Tech has helped nearly 100 clients this year and had nearly 2,000 seminar attendees. Where Ms. Valentine observes a “sea of redundancy,” we see a needed variety of service providers that cause envy in many other communities in the state and nation. With the City of Fayetteville receiving more than 1,000 business license applications through November this year, there cannot be too many paid or volunteer service providers to assist budding entrepreneurs or businesses looking to expand. Two Fayetteville Chamber programs have gone on to spur their own success and are being modeled around the nation: • The Partnership for Defense Innovation’s Defense and Security Technology Accelerator has assisted more than 37 small defense-related businesses, infused almost $30 million into the N.C. economy through Department of Defense contracts and created more than 150 jobs. The PDI has also attracted more than $7.3M in federal contracts to the Cumberland County area to establish the PDI R&D laboratory as the key tenant in the newly established All-American Military Business Park. • The North Carolina Military Business Center has become a state- sponsored organization at community colleges throughout the state with the home office currently at Fayetteville Technical Community College. Since 2005, it has helped North Carolina businesses win between $2.5 and $5.2 billion in government contracts. We held a kickoff event last spring that saw approximately 100 people come out to Fayetteville Tech to learn what our organizations are doing to help the business community. We are currently working on another event in the spring geared specifically to small businesses that wish to ramp up their procurement efforts. We welcome Ms. Valentine to contribute her expertise to our mutual efforts assisting the small businesses of Fayetteville/Cumberland County. We also invite anyone in the community with business experience who would like to observe this partnership in action or assist it in anyway they can! Volunteers need only contact any of the members through our website at www.sabre-cc.com. Sincerely, The members of the Strategic Alliance of Business Resources for Entrepreneurs (SABRE) Center for Economic Empowerment & Development Chambers of Commerce of Fayetteville-Cumberland County, Hope Mills, and Spring Lake City of Fayetteville Cumberland County Cumberland County Public Library & Information Center Cumberland Regional Improvement Corp. Defense Security Technology Accelerator Fayetteville Business Center FTCC Small Business Center North Carolina Military Business Center US Small Business Administration PTAC Procurement Technical Assistance Center Sandhills SCORE, Counselors to America’s Small Business SBTDC Small Business & Technology and Development Center U.S. Small Business Administration Veterans Outreach Business Center @ FSU WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM DECEMBER 22-28, 2010 UCW 5