Success story:
Greenwood Engineering & Manufacturing LLC
Electrical manufacturer finds constant stream of business with help from MO PTAC
Strafford, Mo. residents Danny Minor and his wife Carol faced a major crisis in 2009. It was similar to one that millions of people across the country have been facing during the past two years ... loss of family income due to a lost job.
While the Minor's crisis was difficult, it was not insurmountable. With their determination, talent and expertise, the Minors turned a bad situation into a positive one with the help of Mary Love, a Springfield-based specialist in government contracting with the Missouri Procurement Technical Assistance Centers.
Danny has more than 25 years experience in the electrical and electronics field. He worked for Dayco in Springfield and Detroit Tool & Engineering in Kansas City before starting his own business with a partner in 1997. Their Marshfield-based venture — Innovative Controls Engineering — assembled and sold electrical control panels and custom equipment for a variety of applications, such as washers and dryers.
ICE succeeded for nearly 10 years, but times got rough when Whirlpool bought Maytag. Soon afterwards Whirlpool ceased capital spending and revenue plummeted for Danny's company. He and his partner stared bankruptcy in the face.
They averted insolvency when the Paul Mueller Co. in Springfield made an offer to buy ICE's assets and hire Danny in July 2008. All went well until the fall of 2009 when that company downsized due to dwindling business and let Danny go.
Not ones to be easily discouraged, Danny and Carol decided to devote their full efforts to a new business they had started in January 2009 as a sideline ... Greenwood Engineering and Manufacturing LLC. The couple took a MO PTAC class in government contract solicitation from Mary Love about a year ago.
"Mary's class got us going and her advice and encouragement kept us going," says Danny. "Once we got started we found the government contract solicitation process was simple. You fill in the blanks and then submit. Of course, you have to know what you're doing. That's where Mary's instruction has really helped."
Read this complete success story with additional photos.
MO PTAC counselors offer guidance to businesses seeking contracts with government agencies
When considering target markets for their products and services, many business owners often overlook one with nearly limitless potential — local, state and federal government. Agencies and organizations at all three levels of government buy nearly everything you can think of — from food and flowers to construction and heavy equipment. In fact, governments nearly $900 billion annually on various products and services.
In spite of the potential, business owners tell us that the overwhelming perception of the government as a morass of red tape and bureaucracy turns them off. It just seems to be more trouble than it's worth. But the Missouri Procurement Technical Assistance Centers can help navigate what can be a complicated system.
The PTAC program has been available in Missouri since 1993 and is part of MU Extension's Business Development Program, along with the Missouri Small Business & Technology Development Centers.
MO PTAC offers business owners a variety of services to help them with the government contracting process. The most popular is an electronic bid-matching service, through which a business is notified any time a government agency is seeking to purchase a product or service the company provides. The notification appears in the business owner's e-mail and saves you the time of searching through Federal Business Opportunities and other resources offering appropriate solicitations.
Read more about MO PTAC services.
Great ideas get their day
The Missouri Technology Expo premiers in October
Great ideas are only great if there is a way to turn them into reality.
And doing that takes support, patience and money.
Missouri innovators can start taking the steps to put the right pieces together on Thursday, Oct. 7, at the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center when the Missouri Technology Expo premiers on the MU campus.
"The goal of the Expo is to create a bridge uniting innovators with those whose resources can advance research as well as develop and commercialize technologies," says Jim Gann, Director of Technology Business Development for the Missouri Small Business & Technology Development Centers in Columbia, and a member of the Expo planning committee. "The Expo will foster relationships between the MU academic community and industry partners and thus serve as a catalyst for economic development."
The vision for the Expo is "Technology today, propelling the innovations of tomorrow." In addition to providing a unique educational experience for participants, the planning committee hopes the Expo will create an awareness of ongoing research in Missouri, help innovators establish key relationships with potential commercial partners and market their technologies for licensing or research collaborations and stimulate investment in critical technologies.
Learn more about the Technology Expo.
Business going green
Modified Asphalt Solutions:
Where the rubber IS the road!
If you have driven south into Branson on Highway 65 lately, you may not have noticed you were driving over asphalt manufactured with ground tire rubber (GTR). Yet one company in Missouri is paving the way for more widespread use of old tires in constructing better roads, parking lots, and athletic tracks.
Terry Rainey, the chief operating officer of Modified Asphalt Solutions explains: "The biggest challenge that we have faced is acceptance and education on using GTR as an alternative asphalt modifier. Early experiments with rubber asphalt ended with mixed results, and many state transportation departments still remember those days and are reluctant to try it again."
Missouri's acceptance of GTR is growing, however, since the Missouri Department of Transportation financed testing of the material at the National Center for Asphalt Technology in Auburn, AL. "We were very pleased that MODOT chose our material to be tested side-by-side with another asphalt binder using Styrene Butadiene Styrene," says Terry enthusiastically. "With all other factors being equal, the GTR modified section is not only outperforming the SBS pavement, but is currently one of the top performing sections of track at NCAT."
Most people would not think of a paving company as a model green business, but Modified Asphalt Solutions is benefitting the environment in many ways. Tests show GTR modified asphalt has a much longer life cycle than regular asphalt, and reduces the amount of required ongoing maintenance. This means reductions in paving material, fuel used to maintain highways, and emissions from stalled traffic around road projects.
Read the rest of this story about Modified Asphalt Solutions.
SBA News
SBA study examines varied approaches to credit by small businesses
WASHINGTON, D.C. - SBA's Office of Advocacy released a study this summer examining the type of credit utilized by small business. Bank Credit, Trade Credit or No Credit: Evidence from the Surveys of Small Business Finances, by Rebel A. Cole, compares firms that use credit (leveraged) with those that do not (unleveraged). The study also looks at which kind of credit leveraged firms use — bank credit (loans or lines of credit) trade credit (from suppliers) or both. The study found that the two types of credit (bank credit and trade credit) used by small firms are complements, with many small firms using both types of credit simultaneously.
"Access to credit is one of the most important issues facing small business today" said Susan Walthall, acting chief counsel for advocacy. "A study that provides a better understanding of the credit used by small business is invaluable to policymakers, small businesses and their suppliers."
The study finds that small firms that use no credit are significantly smaller, more profitable, more liquid, and have better credit quality; yet they hold fewer tangible assets. The study also finds that those firms that use credit are larger, and the amount of credit used as a percentage of assets is positively related to the firm's liquidity. In addition, 60 percent of the small firms that use credit use trade credit.
Businesses' use of credit varies by industry, with firms using no credit found primarily in the service sector or wholesale and retail trade. Bank borrowing and trade credit is found more often in the manufacturing and construction sectors.
The study shows that firms that use trade credit tend to be larger and more liquid, but they also have lower credit scores. Small businesses that use bank credit are larger, younger, and less liquid. Companies that utilize neither bank nor trade credit are significantly smaller, more profitable more liquid and of better credit quality.
For more information and a complete copy of the report, visit the Office of Advocacy website at www.sba.gov/advo.
Kauffman study looks at keys to success
for high-growth women entrepreneurs
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Despite their majority representation at U.S. colleges and universities and increased participation in science and engineering, women still are under-represented among business founders, particularly in high-tech and other high-growth fields.
A new study from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, "Are Women Entrepreneurs Different From Men?" provides insights into the few differences and many similarities between successful men and women entrepreneurs, including background, education and motivations for starting a business and beliefs about key success factors.
"We have a robust pool of potential high-growth entrepreneurs in the women who now earn nearly half of all Ph.D.s conferred in this country, yet few are following an entrepreneurial path," said Lesa Mitchell, Kauffman Foundation vice president of advancing innovation and an author of the study. "This study identifies subtle but meaningful factors that influence women to pursue, and succeed in, entrepreneurship. If we can respond to this study by developing programs that support women in creating high-growth businesses, the positive impact on our economy could be significant."
The survey researched the beliefs of 549 company founders of successful businesses in high-growth industries, including computing, telecom, defense, energy and biotechnology. The research, led by Vivek Wadhwa, director of research, Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University, with data analysis led by National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Senior Research Scientist, J. McGrath Cohoon, found that women were more concerned about the challenge of protecting intellectual capital, while men tended to worry more about the inherent financial insecurity associated with starting a business.
Company founders of both sexes who responded to the survey ranked prior industry and work experience as a "very important" factor in determining their startups' success. Men and women both rated experience highest, with lessons learned from previous successes and failures and university education also rated "important" to "very important." Women, however, considered past experience even more important to their success than did men, perhaps because it demonstrates their competence in traditionally male-dominated technical fields.
The survey also found that:
- The majority of the successful entrepreneurs surveyed founded their current company with money from personal savings. Women, however, were much more likely than men to have obtained their main startup funding from a business partner (29 percent of women surveyed compared with 16 percent of men). Less common sources included bank loans, friends and family, venture capital, private/angel investors and corporate investment.
- More than 50 percent of all respondents of both sexes cited these five reasons for becoming entrepreneurs: the desire to build wealth; the wish to capitalize on a business idea they had; the appeal of startup culture; a long-standing desire to own their own company; and lack of appeal of working for someone else.
- The life circumstances of the company founders surveyed were quite similar: At the time of starting their companies, entrepreneurs of both genders were, on average, in their early 40s; were married; and had one child living at home.
- More than half of the women surveyed (56 percent) but less than a third of the men (31 percent) were motivated to become entrepreneurs when a cofounder recruited them.
- In identifying challenges to entrepreneurial success, both sexes cited the time and effort required. Women were much more likely to view protecting intellectual property as a key challenge, while men were more than twice as likely as women to mention family or financial pressure to maintain a steady, traditional job.
"Men and women entrepreneurs share similar motivations, educational levels and work experience, and view the factors determining success in largely the same way. However, professional and personal networks and support are valued more highly by women," Wadhwa said. "Efforts to provide women the types of mentoring and support networks that they view as especially critical to their success should be a priority for entrepreneurship support organizations. The high-growth marketplace — and the U.S. economy — could only benefit from increased gender diversity."
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