Learning the fundamentals
For five years, North Georgia Technical College has been helping entrepreneurs through its innovative Small Business Resource Center. North Georgia Tech is one of many technical colleges focusing on entrepreneurship, by teaching students step-by-step how to launch a business, including instruction in determining a market niche for a product or service, exploring financial options and understanding the legal aspects of business.

“We help students do all their research, write a business plan and prepare to open their doors,” says Fran Chastain, director of the Entrepreneurial Education program at North Georgia Tech. Chastain says because of the nature of study at technical colleges, graduates are more likely to open their own businesses.

“About 75 percent of my students are straight out of other degree or diploma programs. About 25 percent come to the entrepreneurial program because they already know what they want to do, but they need help to develop their plan.”

For those students who qualify, the Small Business Resource Center can also help pinpoint funding through the Mountain Partnership Loan Fund, a federal grant administered by Appalachian Community Enterprises, a non-profit, community-based organization in Cleveland, Ga., that awards small loans to entrepreneurs.

Many of the program’s graduates have already launched businesses, Chastain says, including a dollar store, restaurants, pet store, landscape businesses and computer businesses. The college is also developing a new certificate of credit program called Small Business Owner/Operator. “This second certificate will teach small-business owners more accounting and management skills,” says Chastain.

“It will help those who have already opened their own business to stay in business.”

From idea to execution
The success of North Georgia Tech’s program sparked the recent launch of an entrepreneurship program at Augusta Technical College.

“It’s a total approach to entrepreneurship,” says Ted Duzenski, Augusta Technical College VP of economic development. The program covers financing, marketing and legal issues. The college’s commitment to encouraging the entrepreneur spirit is also evident in its involvement with the Augusta-Richmond County Small Business Incubator.

A large number of Augusta Tech students have started businesses, says Alice Frye, Augusta Tech VP of instructional and student services, so the entrepreneurship program is well placed. Among the fields of study most likely to spawn new businesses, she says, are heating and air conditioning, culinary arts, cosmetology and early childhood education. But it’s the community support that is a vital ingredient for getting new businesses off the ground.