INTERVIEW
John Cronin
POSITION: CEO/executive coach, R.I. Manufacturing Extension Services; effective July 1, state director, R.I. Small Business Development Center.
BACKGROUND: A Long Island native, Cronin came to Rhode Island at 18 to study at Brown University. To support himself and his young family, he worked part time as a truck loader at United Parcel Service and soon became a union steward there. Cronin went on to work as a town planner in North Kingstown, as director of operations for the Economic Innovation Center in Newport, director of the Greater Rhode Island Regional Employment and Training Board, and since 1998, CEO and executive coach at RIMES.
EDUCATION: B.A. in economics, Brown University, 1976; and Master of Community Planning, University of Rhode Island, 1981.
RESIDENCE: North Kingstown
AGE: 51
John Cronin likes to work in the trenches. As head of the R.I. Manufacturing Extension Services (RIMES), he has helped more than 600 companies streamline their operations, enhance their workers’ skills and boost their sales by an estimated $35 million a year.
On July 1, Cronin takes the helm at the Small Business Development Center, which will be based at Johnson & Wales University and share field offices with key partners – from local Chambers of Commerce, to RIMES itself.
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PBN: How is the center going to be different at Johnson & Wales?
CRONIN: There’s a strong commitment from Johnson & Wales to engage its faculty and students in small-business development projects, and my job is to build the organization from the foundation that Bryant [University] built into a Johnson & Wales enterprise that connects businesses to resources in an affordable way. … The first stage of building the new organization is a customer needs assessment and recruitment of the right program managers. … All of the Bryant program managers are candidates, but they’ll be going through an interview process with me and be evaluated with other potential candidates.
PBN: How will Johnson & Wales’ involvement help clients?
CRONIN: It’s a tremendous resource in that Johnson & Wales’ curriculum is all based on experiential learning – they learn by doing, they’re a career university. … They’ll be able to engage in much more in-depth business development programs, research, marketing strategies, a variety of projects that will span the diversity of the talent they have there.
PBN: How big a budget do you have?
CRONIN: The budget is a little under $1 million. It’s a half-million from the U.S. Small Business Administration per year, a quarter-million from Johnson & Wales – that’s the cash commitment, [plus] in-kind contributions … and then there’s $175,000 coming from the state, and a $50,000 grant from Bank of America. We’ll also be seeking other partnerships to bring more resources to the small businesses that we serve.
PBN: How important is building relationships with industry groups, consultants, other colleges?
CRONIN: The foundation of any business is the relationships that you build. … The 11 colleges and universities in Rhode Island, all the service institutions – from the R.I. Economic Development Corporation to the Chafee Center at Bryant, to the R.I. Procurement Technical Assistance Center, to the local Chambers – we have to be unified. … The SBDC is focused on business planning and fundamental services that help the business start up, or rethink and change with a new marketing strategy, a commercial loan – a lot of the basics. But for long-term, continuous improvement … you could need the Chafee Center … or RIMES. … So it’s a matter of helping businesses get the right service at the right time, so they don’t have to go through a maze.
PBN: A lot of these small-business programs seem to be classroom-oriented, whereas your work with RIMES is hands-on. Do you expect to get in the trenches and work directly with businesses?
CRONIN: Most of my work will be coaching the program managers and consultants, [but] in order to do my work effectively as a leader, I’ll have to be out there in the trenches, so to speak, and do the work of a strategist and a problem-solver with the companies. … That’s how you keep your edge.
PBN: Are there specific sectors you think need more support?
CRONIN: From serving the manufacturing community, I believe the SBDC could be a big asset in helping their financial and strategic business planning services. … The Latino community appears to be growing as a business community and beginning to mainstream from micro-enterprises to larger firms. Those are two targets that I have, and then as we do a needs assessment with the local Chambers, I’m sure we’ll find every sector could use more services.
PBN: How will you measure your success?
CRONIN: The major accomplishments will be jobs, job creation. It will be increased sales levels at the companies that work with us, increased investment based on the knowledge they’ve gained, [a growing] tax base.
PBN: What appeals to you about leading the center?
CRONIN: My passion and my vocation has been improving the community and coaching the next generation of leaders. I’ve been a sports coach, from soccer to basketball, for the last 30 years. Business coaching I’ve been doing for the last 15 years. The reason I’m excited about working with Johnson & Wales and [leading the center] is that it can make a major difference. We need to get small business up to a high level of performance to sustain our good standard of living and improve it. Rhode Island is a family business state; Rhode Island is a great community. I love it here, and I want to make a big contribution.
