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The need for constructive, cooperative efforts to get businesses started and keep them growing has been greater this year than probably any other in our lifetime.

Small businesses are a substantial source of employment and earnings, which are critical during this severe recession. In New Jersey, there were 574,000 firms with no employees in 2006 and 730,000 people working at businesses with fewer than 20 employees, according to the Census Bureau - about one in every five jobs.

So this was an excellent year for the Small Business Development Center of Richard Stockton College - which already served Atlantic and Cape May counties - to bring its full array of business support services to Cumberland County.

Excellent except that, with the state cutting its funding for N.J. Small Business Development Centers, the local SBDC had to find another way to come up with matching funds to qualify for federal grants.

Joseph Molineaux, director of the Stockton SBDC, said it was able to launch a full-service center on March with the help of several existing agencies in the new territory:

n the Cumberland Empowerment Zone, which coordinated the funding;

n the Cumberland County Improvement Authority;

n the Cumberland Development Corp.;

n the Urban Enterprise Zones of Vineland and Millville;

n the County of Cumberland, which helped with organization and administration;

n the Cumberland County Department of Planning and Development, which helped put the partnership together;

n the Cumberland County Office of Employment and Training, which provided a computer-furnished office for the center and access to resources of the One-Stop employment office.

The results have been pretty dramatic.

From March 1 to Nov. 20 last year in Cumberland County, the center had 86 business customers who received help in 136 sessions, and provided 17 training events.

Now with the new facility, those numbers have more than doubled for the same time period, with 178 customers, 302 sessions and 49 training events, Molineaux said.

The many agencies involved have benefited too, from having coordinated provision of services to the county's small businesses.

"It's been really great for the partners now to have one place to refer all inquiries for small business growth and startups," he said, "one place for them to go rather than telling them to try this person or try that person."

The cooperative work on opening and operating the small business center in the county has so impressed the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers that this year it's creating a new honor - a Most Valued Partner Award - and giving it to Cumberland County.

The award will be made at a luncheon Friday at the Forsgate Country Club in Monroe Township, Middlesex County. Accepting it for the many agencies involved will be Cumberland County Freeholder Director Louis N. Magazzu.

Also to be honored this year by the state SBDC is U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, who will receive the Business Advocate Award.

Molineaux said LoBiondo has always backed small-business funding at the federal level, including backing legislation in support of the federal Small Business Administration.

Among 13 businesses being honored with Success Awards is one in Vineland, the Sweet Life Bakery.

The Cumberland initiative shows that in difficult times, it's especially important to remain constructive and even optimistic to make a brighter future a reality.

Molineaux said this is the way he puts it to business clients: "I always tell people, if we don't live in hope, then we're living in despair."

Better to hope, and work together to make it happen.

Contact Kevin Post:

609-272-7250

KPost@pressofac.com

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