PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Diversification and Entrepreneurship
One of the recommendations made to the Economic Development Council by TIP Strategies, Inc. in their "Strategies to Diversify the Economy", Okaloosa County Report, was to build a local and regional entrepreneurship program leveraging existing talent and resources in the area.
The establishment of an incubator facility housing entrepreneurs in Okaloosa County has been a long time quest for the Economic Development Council and Northwest Florida State College. In fact, in the original Research Park concept paper written by the EDC and OWC in 1991, a section was devoted to including an incubator in the development of this park so that start up technical companies could team up with university research and federal laboratory members to facilitate the transfer and commercialization of technologies in a joint campus atmosphere.
The current economy has driven more individuals in our area to think about starting their own companies, but the access to funding and support services for these young entrepreneurs has been limited. Funding at the Angel level and especially the Venture Capital levels has been scarce in our small market, and the added services that entrepreneurs expect if they are going to make that leap of faith effort to be part of an incubator has also been scarce.
The EDC started seriously thinking about the development of a technical incubator facility when the Emerald Coast Technology & Research Center began to blossom. Unfortunately, for our area and the identified developers of this new ECTRC, the Air Force’s Environmental Impact Study and Supplemental Study got in the way of the progress of this new center and it brought to a standstill until the supplemental study is released next year.
We thought we would have to put the incubator concept on hold until Dr Jack Azzaretto met with us and suggested that their was available space at UWF’s Combs Campus for us to establish our incubator until it was time to relocate it to the acreage that surrounds the UF REEF and joint campus of UWF, outside the west gate of Eglin.
Starting a new business can be a great and rewarding experience, and that is what the EDC is attempting to provide to the young entrepreneurial companies it will house in its new EDC Technology Incubator Facility (TIF) on the UWF Combs Campus. Research tells us that start up firms who receive local support while they are in their infant stage of development, tend to grow and stay in the community that helped them mature. Providing a facility that allows new, start up firms to focus on the development of their innovative product or service is an important objective for the EDC at this new facility.
The EDC-TIF is designed to help strengthen the recognition of our area’s entrepreneurial opportunities among regional and national angel investment groups. To do this effectively, the EDC will work closely with UWF, UF REEF, NWF State College and our military and private sector partners in supporting the importance of the entrepreneurial talent that exist in our back yards. “Growing our Own” is especially important today as companies and communities struggle to balance their budgets. Growing our own means that we will help young firms be responsible and allow them to focus on the development of their product or service with plenty of support from a defined network of experts. The EDC-TIF Board will provide structure to this new program and help reduce the risk of small business failure from the tenants that will be housed at the TIF. The Small Business Development Center will play an important role in helping to pre-screen candidates that the TIF Board will later interview for consideration. The EDC will introduce tenants to programs that could help them qualify for Federal support like the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) / STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) that provide dollars for market research, technology consulting services, grant writing assistance and legal/accounting fees.
The EDC realizes that economic diversification is a common goal of economic organizations and the most important ingredients to a long-term sustainable diversification model are innovation and entrepreneurship. An incubator facility allows creative innovation and entrepreneurial growth to take place. What better way to foster new growth then to recognize what we have right here in our own great community.
Larry Sassano
President, EDC
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