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Faces of Entrepreneurship Award Winners!

  • Faces of Entrepreneurship Award Winners
  • Micro Goes To Market, A Specialty Foods Conference in Watsonville (next week!)
  • The Goodies – This week’s highlight is a reminder to fill out the microTracker census with your 2013 impacts. Email Andrew if you have problems or questions. You can fill out the short version of the census by tomorrow afternoon and still receive $100 toward a staff lunch.

Faces of Entrepreneurship Award Winners

The staff thanks the organizations who submitted nominations for the Faces Award. We received more than we’ve ever received and it was a tough decision. After much deliberation, we’re excited to announce this year’s award winners: Patty Rodriguez of SF Parking (see photo) nominated by Working Solutions and Alfredo Garcia of Watsonville Diesel, nominated by El Pajaro Community Development Corporation. Both companies have demonstrated economic stability, strong job creation and community service. Join us in Sacramento to celebrate these entrepreneurs at the Awards Luncheon that will take place during our 20th Anniversary/Annual Meeting.

Micro Goes To Market

Many CAMEO members are seeing an increase in clients in the food sector – from raw foods to wholesale products to artisan creations. CAMEO has teamed up with the Specialty Food Association and El Pajaro to offer up a full day of learning about the food industry: what business and marketing opportunities are available, how to stay viable and competitive, and where to secure financing.

Micro Goes to Market,
Specialty Foods Conference

May 28, 2014
9:00am – 4:00pm Conference
4:30pm – 6:00pm Networking Reception
Watsonville Civic Plaza

If you’re interested in starting a food business or work with food businesses, Micro Goes to Market is for you. Join us!

Learn more and register for the Micro Goes to Market, Specialty Foods Conference.

Healthcare and Entrepreneurship

Now that the Affordable Care Act is in full swing, we need some feedback about how it has affected business starts (email me your answers).

  1. Have any of your staff (where applicable) been able to get insurance that couldn’t before the ACA went into effect because they had preexisting health problems?
  2. Are any of your clients able to get insurance that couldn’t before the ACA went into effect because they had preexisting health problems?
  3. Are you seeing more clients that want to start businesses because they can now leave their previous employer (whereas before the ACA they couldn’t because they have preexisting health problems)?

Anecdotes are fine at this point, but keep this topic in the back of your mind as a topic of interest for policy makers.

Healthcare Webinars: The Small Business Administration and Small Business Majority are committed to helping businesses navigate the changes and opportunities in health care through the webinar series What the Healthcare Law Means For Your California Small Business . It’s every two weeks in English and monthly in Spanish. The next ones are on June 4, 2014 at 10:00am and June 3, 2014 at 1:00pm respectively. Note the Small Business Health Option Program’s online enrollment function is on hold and will be back online in the fall. Businesses can still purchase insurance through the traditional paper process, working with your Certified agent or the SHOP Service Center.

The Goodies

New opportunities for training, conference information, funding, scholarships, and other information that have crossed our desks since the last Must Know. I have posted a running tab of current Industry Goodies on the CAMEO website that lists items that were in past emails. Check it out to make sure you’re not missing anything, like grants whose deadlines are still alive!

CAMEO White Paper: Download Do-It-Yourself Economic Growth: How Communities Can Cultivate Their Talent and Thrive. Read it. Use it as a resource. Share it. The Do-It-Yourself Economy is built on a foundation of small, locally-owned, diverse businesses. CAMEO’s white paper focuses on why we need a new approach to economic development, explains the reality of small business and self-employment labor market trends, and delineates some of the tools that local economic developers can use to create a sustainable future for their regions.

Industry Conference: BALLE hosts Prosperity for All from June 11-13, 2014 in Oakland. The conference will dive deep into the most energized issues in the Localist movement today. Join CAMEO and BALLE to explore the challenges, emerging trends, opportunities and ways to rebuild our economic system in six critical areas: Finance for Resilient Local Economies; Ecosystems for Community Entrepreneurship; Leadership Development for a New Economy; a Localist Policy Agenda; the New Food Economy; and the Future of Ownership. Contact Shufina for information on how to apply for a professional development scholarship.

For Your Clients: The Farmer Veteran Coalition invites all women who have served and are serving in the U.S. Armed Forces to participate in the Empowering Women Veterans Retreat. This event will focus on equipping military women who are interested in business with the tools necessary to be successful. The retreat takes place in Santa Barbara, CA at the beautiful La Casa de Maria Retreat Center on June 20-22, 2014. FVC is offering limited travel grants for up to $500. Apply when you register.

Professional Development Scholarship: Through the Diane Lupke Scholarship Fund, IEDC is proud to award four scholarships to economic development professionals (two IEDC members and two nonmembers) working in distressed communities to attend an IEDC education course of the recipient’s choice. Submit all materials by Friday, July 25, 2014 to be eligible for consideration.