Marianna Carroll and Lauren Bozich
  One Small Business' Story
Learn about the owners of The White Flower Cake Shoppe
and see some of the cakes that launched their business
Little Giants
Small businesses prove vital to North-East Ohio's economy
By K. Marie David, Director, Outreach Marketing
Small businesses drive the economic engine of our country. In fact, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, independent businesses with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms. They also employ about half of all private sector workers and pay almost half of the total private payroll in the nation.
And small businesses aren’t just responsible for employing a large segment of the U.S. population; they also contribute greatly to productivity. Small businesses create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product. Most importantly, they have generated 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs annually over the last decade.
With small business playing such a vital role in the economy, it’s critical for our well-being as a nation and as a region to foster and promote the vitality of small businesses in Northeast Ohio. Kent State advances this effort by hosting Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) on several of its campuses, which support the establishment, improvement and longevity of individual businesses, as well as contributing to the economy where those businesses are located.
The Stark and Tuscarawas campuses, for example, both run full-service Small Business Development Centers, while the Kent Campus offers a specialized Manufacturing and Technology Small Business Development Center and an International Trade Assistance Center. These centers provide valuable resources for new and existing small businesses, such as seminars, personalized advising and networking opportunities.
The results are impressive. In the last year, the Stark Campus SBDC, for example, advised and trained 786 clients, resulting in the creation or retention of 329 jobs in the region.
“Not only did the Kent State Stark Small Business Development Center assist me with the start-up of my business, but they have also been there every time I have had a question,” says Michael Brown of South Electric Services in Massillon.
The Tuscarawas Campus SBDC advised and trained 1,683 clients in the same time period, resulting in 1,701 jobs created or retained and $40,000 in increased sales for their clients. In addition, Kent State Tuscarawas is the lead center for economic development in region 10, which serves 10 counties in East Central Ohio.
“I know that without the Small Business Development Center at Kent State Tuscarawas, I would not be here today,” says Jeanne Keenan, owner of Serenity Tea House in Coshocton. “Their help and commitment to my success is what got Serenity Tea started. For them it is not just a job; they take what they do to heart.”
On the Kent Campus, the International Trade Assistance Center, hosted by the Northeast Ohio Trade & Economic Consortium, served 210 clients, with 711 jobs created or retained and $10,000 in increased sales. The Manufacturing and Technology SBDC, which serves a larger area than the other centers — 22 counties in Eastern Ohio — advised and trained 230 clients, creating or retaining 3,015 jobs and increasing client sales by $400,000.
The Ohio Small Business Development Center network conducted an analysis of the economic impact of their SBDCs by region in 2006, which includes direct impacts that were generated directly from the operations of the firms receiving SBDC assistance. In the regions that Kent State SBDCs serve, the clients they have worked with have contributed a combined economic impact of just over $2 billion — offering strong evidence of the positive effect that SBDCs and their clients have in Northeast Ohio.
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