URI bids to host state biz-development center

DEVELOPING STORY: Adriana Dawson, R.I. Small Business Development Center director, middle, speaks with with Operations Director Diane Fournaris, left, and Central and Southern Rhode Island Director Ardena Lee-Fleming at the center’s JWU home. URI has made a bid to host the center starting next year. / PBN PHOTO/MARTIN GAVIN
DEVELOPING STORY: Adriana Dawson, R.I. Small Business Development Center director, middle, speaks with with Operations Director Diane Fournaris, left, and Central and Southern Rhode Island Director Ardena Lee-Fleming at the center’s JWU home. URI has made a bid to host the center starting next year. / PBN PHOTO/MARTIN GAVIN

The University of Rhode Island is one of the bidders proposing to host the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center when the contract for its current space at Johnson & Wales University expires on Dec. 31.
“URI would be the main host,” said Katharine Flynn, executive director of the URI Business Engagement Center, who confirmed the university put in a proposal with the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C., by the Oct. 3 deadline.
“We would have a hub for the Small Business Development Center at two of our campuses – in [South Kingstown] and Providence,” said Flynn, who declined to say if there would be potential partners or provide more details about the proposal, citing the competitive bidding process.
Mark Hayward, Rhode Island district director for the U.S. Small Business Administration, last week said there was no information available on potential bidders.
The seven staff members of the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center – employees of Johnson & Wales University under the current contract – know they will be going somewhere when the year ends – perhaps to the state unemployment line.
“When the contract ends, there’s no guarantee the current employees will be transferred over with the program,” said Adriana Dawson, current state director of the small-business development center. She was assistant director of the program when it was housed previously at Bryant University.
“The new host has the ability to bring talent onboard where they see a good fit,” she said. “The current employees could resubmit applications to be considered for positions with the new host.”
The center needs to move because Johnson & Wales’ notified the SBA in the spring that it would no longer host the center at the end of the contract, said university spokeswoman Lisa Pelosi.
“Currently we have some information technology functions there and there’s the expectation that we would use that SBDC space for our IT functions,” said Pelosi. Bryant University was the founding host institution for the small-business development center, which was based at the Smithfield campus from 1983 to 2006, said Bryant University spokeswoman Elizabeth O’Neill.
Bryant representatives attended the bidders’ conference for the relocation of the center, but did not submit a bid, said O’Neill.
Neither Providence College nor the Community College of Rhode Island submitted bids, according to spokesmen.
Salve Regina University, which is currently the Newport County/East Bay partner for the center, could not be immediately reached for comment on whether it had submitted a bid.
New England Institute of Technology in East Greenwich was originally interested in being a satellite site for the center as a partner on the URI proposal, said NEIT spokesman Steve Kitchin, but is not part of the URI bid.
The SBA bidders’ conference was held at the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce in Warwick on June 26.
About half the funding for the Rhode Island SBDC, or about $625,000, is from SBA, said Dawson. When fully staffed, the center had 11 employees, but that dwindled down to seven, Dawson said.
Johnson & Wales provided $250,000 annually, in addition to a matching amount of in-kind services, including office space and equipment, Dawson said.
The state contribution to the SBDC, through the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, was $42,000 for fiscal 2014, said Dawson.
The small-business center counseled 700 clients in 2012, according to Dawson. Seventy percent of those were existing business and 30 percent were startups. Forty-five percent were women-owned businesses, 33 percent minority-owned and 7 percent veteran-owned, said Dawson. •

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