Business Development Program
Source: MU Extension Annual Report, FY 2008
John Hipple Jr., president of Joplin-based Sign Designs, had arrived at the point where business expansion was the next logical step. But he needed advice. He took his questions to the experts at the Missouri Small Business Development Center in Joplin. As a result of the counseling, Hipple received a $280,000 loan from a local bank. With the capital he purchased a larger facility and more advanced equipment, including a three-dimensional router, software and improved technology for more sophisticated sign construction.
Throughout the latest reporting year, the Business Development Program, whose academic home is in the College of Engineering, assisted more than 9,900 Missouri residents — including 2,386 counseling clients and business owners statewide — through individualized business counseling or training. In doing so, the programs influenced Missouri’s economy, which surpassed an additional $90 million in sales, nearly 6,800 new jobs, $77 million for new investments in client businesses and $252 million in government contracts.
But each year, the success stories most clearly illustrate ways in which the programs continue to meet their mission to improve people’s livelihoods and the competitiveness of Missouri’s businesses through research-based education and technical assistance to enhance the state’s economy.
For example, nanotechnology once was confined to the realm of science fiction. Today, though, Keshab and Shubhra Gangopadhyay, a husband-and-wife doctoral engineering team at MU, are focusing their “nanovision” from the laboratory toward the marketplace. Among their efforts is a prototype nanodevice to help physicians treat life-threatening illnesses. But to attain a viable business plan to match the quality of their research, the high-tech pair turned to tech-savvy business specialists at MU’s University Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering.
By providing counseling, education and information to local business owners and their staffs, MU Extension is working every day to improve the competitiveness and continued success of many of Missouri’s estimated 508,900 small businesses.
Farther east, Melissa Wurst’s professional passions to help people and businesses overcome cultural and language barriers are being realized by the growing localization industry company that she founded a decade ago near St. Louis. With the help of her local Small Business Development Center, Wurst, president of Language Solutions Inc., has been able to make financial sense of her business goals to achieve her dreams of reaching like-minded business people around the world. Today the company has branches in Singapore and Argentina, and an international contracting network of 1,200 linguists.
During the most recent fiscal year, the statewide economic impact of MU Extension’s Business Development Program included helping Missouri clients to start 146 new businesses, pursue investment efforts in research and new technology commercialization worth more than $3 million, and generate new tax revenue of $4.3 million on the federal level and $5.4 million on the state level.
Success story
Interns’ Environmental Research Projects Save Businesses Money
One way for businesses to stay in the black is by “going green.”
The MU Extension Business Development Program and College of Engineering are partnering to help Missouri industries improve their bottom line by becoming more environmentally friendly.
“Our researchers and faculty are finding new and better ways to reduce energy waste and eliminate environmental hazards,” says Marie Steinwachs, project coordinator. During a 10-week summer internship, University students apply engineering research at host companies. “Students are hungry to get their teeth into real-life experiences where they can be challenged to put their knowledge into action,” Steinwachs says.
MU senior Nathan Kraus looked at minimizing solid waste at transformer manufacturer ABB Inc. in his hometown of Jefferson City. Kraus identified more than $36,000 in annual savings that could be realized by recycling what the company paid to throw away, in addition to more than $41,000 in possible annual energy savings by better insulating plant furnaces.
Kansas City intern Chris Applebury worked with Cargill in Marshall to determine that a heat exchanger could reduce the company’s use of natural gas to heat water, increase the efficiency of its refrigeration system, and reduce its use of electricity and natural gas, saving the plant more than $100,000 annually.
Intern Sean Crockett identified ways Boeing Integrated Defense Systems of St. Louis could save more than $66,500 annually while reducing its carbon footprint. Crockett says he not only gained real-world experience, but obtained “critical analysis skills in the field—skills that are sometimes difficult to learn in a classroom.”
In the first year of the program, five students saved three Missouri industries more than $261,000.