Release prepared by April Wright, UNCG Communications intern
Randolph Community College's Small Business Center ranked 5th in the state for 2007-2008, according to a report from Dr. George E. Millsaps Jr., state director at the Small Business Center Network of the North Carolina Community College System. Only four community college small business centers performed better. The ranking is based on the number of seminars, number of attendees, number of counseling clients, and number of counseling hours the center reported for the year.
"Only one small business center in North Carolina reported creating/retaining more jobs," said Millsaps, "thus, due to your performance, the state spent less than $300 for every job you created and/or retained."
During the 2007-2008 school year, RCC's Small Business Center held 78 seminars with 982 attendees and counseled 144 clients through 776 hours of counseling. That resulted in eight new business start-ups, 227 jobs created, and 110 jobs retained.
The Small Business Center supports the development of new business and the growth of existing businesses by being a community-based provider of education and training, counseling, and resource information and referrals, said Victor Dau, director. The objective of the Small Business Center is to increase the success rate and the number of viable small businesses in Randolph County by providing high quality, readily accessible assistance to prospective and existing small business owners and their employees.
The Small Business Center provides low or no cost support to local small business. Support includes business seminars and workshops, confidential business counseling, and a resource center with printed materials such as books, pamphlets, magazines, trade journals, and a wide variety of tapes and videos as well as business-related software and wireless access to the Internet. There is also an Entrepreneurial Resource Center located at RCC's Archdale Center.
For more information on the Small Business Center, contact call Sharon Warren at (336) 633-0275 or Victor Dau at (336) 633-0240 or visit RCC's Web site at www.randolph.edu.
