UConn Launches Revitalized Small Business Development Center

This past Wednesday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, DECD Commissioner Catherine Smith, Mary Holz-Clause, UConn’s Vice President for Economic Development, and Jeanne Hulit, SBA Associate Administrator for Capital Access, held a press conference at CBIA’s Connecticut Business Day to relaunch and reboot the Connecticut Small Business Development Center (CTSBDC) initiative.

The center is a five-year, $11.6 million program to provide financial and technical assistance to businesses with 500 or fewer employeeswhich accounts for roughly 93 percent of Connecticut employers. And UConn’s Office of Economic Development is the administartor of this program.The initiative combines resources and funding from state and federal government, the University of Connecticut, and the state’s MetroChambers of Commerce.

UConn is already leading the way in boosting small businesses across the state, with initiatives like the School of Business’ Family Business Program, the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Innovation East, and the successful Technology Incubation Program, which has attracted small technology companies from other states and currently incubates up to 40 companies that are generating revenues of more than $19 million this year alone.

The Small Business Development Center program, administered by the federal government’s Small Business Administration, has been providing service to small businesses for more than 30 years and is one of the largest professional small business management and technical assistance networks in the nation with over 900 locations across the country.

The SBDC in Connecticut was housed at Storrs until 2008, when it moved to Central Connecticut State University. Four years later, CCSU decided to focus on other initiatives and provided the state an opportunity to re-examine its approach to assisting small businesses in the state. UConn was tapped to re-invent the program to meet the new challenges Connecticut businesses face.

For more information regarding the SBDC and its programs, please visit www.ctsbdc.org.