Nevada Small Business Development Center

It was an eventful year around the Carson City region notwithstanding the limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here's some notable stories that were not pandemic related that happened in 2020.

Clint Koble, Executive Director of the Department of Agriculture's Nevada Rural Development Council in the Obama administration, will be the featured speaker at next Monday's Democratic tele-luncheon. The topic of his presentation will be “Rebuilding Rural America” — a set of policy proposals he developed based on a lifetime in public life and on his own experience as a product of rural America, having been born and raised on a farm in North Dakota.

CARSON CITY — The Nevada Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation is the recipient of a nearly $14 million federal grant to support short-term job training programs to help prepare unemployed and underemployed individuals for in-demand occupations in Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Friday.

CARSON CITY —The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development is partnering with StartUpNV, Entrepreneur’s Assembly, Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority, business leaders, and other government entities, in a new statewide initiative to foster entrepreneurship in Nevada’s smaller cities and towns.

Last week the Carson City Library and Google co-hosted an online workshop for the state’s small businesses including the Nevada Small Business Development Center and the Connected Commerce Council for Nevada.

On Thursday, July 30, Google co-hosted an online workshop with the Nevada Small Business Development Center and the Connected Commerce Council for Nevada as part of the tech company’s ‘Grow with Google’ initiative. ‘Grow with Google’ aims to help create economic opportunity in communities across the United States by providing free training, tools, and expertise for people across their country to grow their skills, careers, and businesses.

With small businesses reopening and needing to adjust their operations amid COVID-19 restrictions and economic challenges, University of Nevada, Reno Extension is teaming up with the Nevada Small Business Development Center to offer an online town hall this week, “The Nevada SBDC and Business Counseling.”

The Nevada Small Business Development Center is pleased to announce a social media campaign to support small businesses across the state. The campaign, Support Small Businesses 5-Day Challenge, gives everyone a way to support small businesses from the safety of their home.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to threaten local economies across the country, the U.S. Small Business Administration has increased efforts to alleviate the hardship experienced by small businesses.

Time flies as the sun shines going into the last Monday in February. Expect daytime highs around 60. Activities include are a political luncheon with Clint Koble, a primary candidate for the 2nd Congressional District, plus yoga, fitness events, West Coast swing dance lessons at Carson Lanes and more.

Clint Koble, a Democratic primary candidate for the 2nd Congressional District, will be the featured speaker at the next Democratic luncheon. Koble was also the CD2 Democratic candidate in 2018.

Minden, NV - For the sixth consecutive year, several Douglas County businesses were recognized with a Spotlight Award. This year’s awards were given at the Critical Issues Conference held on Thursday, September 26, 2019. The Spotlight Awards recognized businesses in 7 different categories: Business and Professional Service, Entrepreneur, Manufacturing and Production, Restaurant, Retail, Sports and Recreation, and Tourism and Hospitality.

The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development is hosting a free panel discussion next week in Reno for small businesses to learn the information they need to compete for government contracts.

It’s a great time to be a business student at Western Nevada College. Changes to WNC’s Business program are providing students with important community contacts, real-world training, marketable skills, online course offerings and the opportunity to transfer to a four-year business program as a junior.

Helping support and inspire the growing number of students in the entrepreneurship minor program is the Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship. Since opening its doors in the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Business in September 2014, the Ozmen Center has built an interdisciplinary program spanning across campus and out into the community.

“We teach a different way of thinking,” Chris Howard, Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship director, said. “I describe it as diagonal thinking. We take the knowledge students learn in class and apply it to get different and desired results.”

Start-Up! is weekly column on entrepreneurship, start-ups, technology and innovation, powered by the Adams Hub for Innovation.

Perhaps the single most important and consequential decision you will make as an entrepreneur is who you hire to help you build your business. Studies have found that the first three people a start-up hires set the tone, culture, precedent and path to success more than the next ten hires.

Start-Up! is weekly column on entrepreneurship, start-ups, technology and innovation, powered by the Adams Hub for Innovation.

So are you asking what these folks have in common? If you are an entrepreneur (and a serial one at that) are you considering that you could be ruthless, feared yet beloved by those close to you?

Western Nevada College Specialty Crop Institute offers “Creating a Farm Website” Workshop on Saturday, April 18, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. at the WNC Fallon Campus, 160 Campus Way. Cost is $25 for those registering by April 11, $35 afterward. Lunch is included, and seating is limited. Online registration is available at http://www.wnc.edu/ce/sci/.

Small businesses in Nevada were a big deal in 2014. The Nevada Small Business Development Center, a statewide resource for business assistance and headquartered in the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Business, helped open 136 new small businesses in the state last year.

“It’s easy to forget the impact small businesses can have, especially with the growing focus on many big-named businesses in the state,” Sam Males, director of the Nevada SBDC, said. “These smaller businesses created 470 jobs and $18 million in new financing, clearly making a marked impact.”

The business branch of the Carson City Library, currently housed at the Business Resource Innovation Center (the “BRIC”), will be relocating back to the main branch in January 2015. The BRIC Carson City library resources will close on Jan. 9 at 5 p.m. and are scheduled to reopen in the main library Jan. 26.

“With the new technology assets at the main branch, it makes sense to bring the BRIC resources back to the main branch,” said Sena Loyd, Carson City Library director.

The Nevada State Demographer’s Office at the University of Nevada, Reno has released its most recent population projections for Nevada and its individual counties, projecting through 2033.

Reducing the amount of Nevada small business closures is the goal of a new monthly workshop designed to educate business owners on how to assess their venture prior to licensing and launch. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about half of all new establishments survive five years or more and about one-third survive 10 years or more.

With Nevada’s climate, more farmers are looking for ways to extend the growing season. University of Nevada, Reno’s High Desert Farming Initiative is offering a class for Nevada’s agricultural producers, “The Business of Season Extension Farming,” to provide information on field-tested methods for extending the growing season, as well information on reducing risk, low-cost marketing and financial planning. The course will be 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Sept. 12 at the Nye County Cooperative Extension office in Pahrump.

The Nevada State Demographer’s Office at the University of Nevada, Reno has released its most recent population projections for Nevada and its individual counties, projecting through 2032. After seeing population declines in 2011, 2012 and this year with 363 less people living here, Carson City's projected population is 55,122.

“As our state recovers, people should bear in mind that Nevada was hit by three economic factors in the last decade: the housing bubble, the spike in fuel prices, and the financial crisis. Even so we grew by 35 percent from 2000 to 2010,” Jeff Hardcastle, state demographer, said.

NV Energy is sponsoring a workshop in Reno for small and diverse businesses interested in providing goods and services to Nevada’s largest electric utility. The workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, March 12, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the company’s Sierra Plaza Auditorium at 6100 Neil Road.

Partnering with NV Energy to present the Strategies for Winning Contracts workshop are the Nevada Small Business Development Center (NSBDC), the U.S. Small Business Administration and the Nevada Office of Economic Development.

CARSON CITY, NEVADA- Russell Upton was an employee of Lyon County for six and one-half years before he found himself laid off due to budget cuts last summer. Upton, like many newly-unemployed, was uncertain of how to survive and how to cope. His wife would later tell the story how Upton had given up hope at a time in their lives when they should have been more settled.

Collaborative efforts between the Nevada Small Business Development Center and the Nevada Microenterprise Initiative/Women’s Business Center (NMI) are demonstrating solid benefits to funding sources and the public. “More than ever state agencies must be efficient and results-oriented in how tax dollars are spent,” said Sam Males, NSBDC’s state director.

The state's Interim Finance Committee questioned Corrections Director Greg Cox over contradictory plans for running the license plate shop at the Nevada State Prison once the facility closes down. The original plan was for the shop to stay where it is and be run by minimum security inmates. But Cox had also been looking at moving the plant to either the Northern Nevada Correctional Center on the south side of Carson City, or to High Desert State Prison near Las Vegas. He said they didn't currently have the money to make that move.

The IFC also got the final $521,904 bill for the special election to fill Nevada's Second Congressional District seat after Gov. Brian Sandoval appointed Dean Heller to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Ensign.

The IFC also approved funding for 20 of the 30 new positions for the Department of Motor Vehicles approved by the 2011 Legislature. The new positions are supposed to help cut the wait time at DMV offices, which have increased since 85 positions were eliminated due to budget cuts.

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A coalition of organizations is urging the Attorney General's office to reject a multi-state settlement with the banking industry over allegations of widespread falsifying loan documents and other wrongdoing in the wake of the mortgage foreclosure crisis. New York and California have already signaled that they will not sign onto the agreement, and the Attorneys General of Nevada and California recently announced that they will work together to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by the banks.

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The Carson City Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the Nevada Small Business Development Center at UNR to work together to operate the city's Business Resource Innovation Center, under the leadership of its new director Michael Salogga.

The Carson City Board of Supervisor will consider settlements in two lawsuits alleging misconduct by city employees at the board's next meeting on Dec. 15.

By Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Nevada is projected to lose more than 50,000 residents by 2014 because of the ongoing state economic slump, state Demographer Jeff Hardcastle said today.
The short term projections are bleak under either of two models developed by Hardcastle to forecast Nevada’s population growth through 2030.