Resource center opens to give businesses a boost

Jon Rogers, a Carson City business owner, paid a visit to the Business Resource Innovation Center two weeks ago in search of some help on his company's marketing plan.

He said the city-funded venture has given him a new perspective on government.

"I've run small businesses since 1975 and this is the first time I have ever gone to any government agency for help, I've only gone to them to pay bills in the past," Rogers said. "I was surprised and happy it was available."

The resource center conducted a soft opening inside the former Fireside Building, 108 E. Proctor St., on Aug. 9 after the city's business license, planning and engineering divisions opened their offices on the building's second floor.

The idea is to provide businesses with all the resources they need in one location, whether it's registering a new coffee shop with the city upstairs or learning how to file a copyright in the downstairs resource center. A part-time librarian is also on hand to guide business owners with their research, which includes a Spanish speaker every Wednesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

When Rogers visited the business resource center on Aug. 18, he met with Mona Reno, the part-time librarian who will help businesses conduct research.

"It crossed my mind that I could use some help on the marketing side of my business, so I went down to see her," said Rogers, who runs Lock-N-Lift, a company that develops a tool to lift those three-ton steel plates sometimes placed over holes during road construction projects. It relocated to Carson City last summer.

At its core, the center will feature partnerships with a number of regional business groups, including the Carson City Chamber of Commerce, Nevada Small Business Development Center and the Northern Nevada Development Authority. They will be able to offer business seminars, using one of the center's meeting rooms to conduct lessons on anything from using social media to how to develop a business plan. Aid will also be available to area non-profits seeking advice on obtaining grants.

The NSBDC's Kathy Halbareidier will maintain an office in the business resource center where businesses will be able to schedule appointments after normal business hours and on weekends.

"I want to be flexible to what the user needs are going to be," Halbareidier said.

Other organizations that will help conduct seminars or provide expertise will include SCORE and the Carson City Arts and Culture Coalition among others.

The center has been in the works for more than a year, said Joe McCarthy, the director of the Office of Business Development in Carson City. The center is being funded through city redevelopment funds plus a $100,000 grant that was awarded to the Carson City Public Library, which supports the store front operation downstairs.

"The city is focused as best it can in a small way to provide assistance to existing businesses," McCarthy said. "There are other entities out there that are trying to recruit businesses to come to town. But our job is to support the existing business person or entity in order to grow their business or jobs ..."

There is still much work to do on the 4,000 square foot resource center, McCarthy said, who is planning on a grand opening later this fall once all the dust has settled.

But this month's soft opening represents the start of a new chapter for what Carson City chamber director Ronni Hannaman said is the symbiotic relationship between business and government.

"I think this is going to be a work in progress," Hannaman said. "In Carson City we have various organizations that provide seminars and information to their members like (the Builders Association of Western Nevada), the NNDA and the chamber, but I think it's nice just to be able to partner with the city so that they are more aware of what is out there as well and can work with the private sector to make businesses stronger."