Are you an entrepreneur or do you know one from GSU or CenterPoint who deserves recognition?

Do you provide support to entrepreneurship through services to them or do you champion their endeavors?

CenterPoint and GSU are establishing an Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame, and we invite you to nominate yourself or another deserving entrepreneur to be honored at our first annual Hall of Fame event planned for this summer.

The rules are simple:

• the honoree must have a connection to GSU – alumni, staff, board member, vendor, current student
  
• or client of CenterPoint- and have either been an entrepreneur or someone who has supported entrepreneurship as a service-provider or champion.
  

The enterprise they established can be either a for-profit or non-profit organization. Nominees will be evaluated based on their impact and connection to GSU.

You can nominate yourself or a fellow entrepreneur by completing the simple form at the CenterPoint website.

Whether you nominate yourself or not, we invite you to share in the celebration of entrepreneurship this summer. We will notify you as plans are finalized.

The 2009 numbers are in.   From January to December 2009, CenterPoint sponsored 50 seminars and training programs hosted at Governors State University attracting 655 attendees.   Over 700 clients visited CenterPoint and received nearly 3,500 hours of counseling for developing, financing, growing or improving their enterprise.  Thirty (30) College of Business and Public Administration students and faculty helped both pre start and in business CenterPoint clients get solutions to real world business issues.   Small Businesses are the economic engine of our recovering economy and for 25 years, CenterPoint at Governors State University, has been the solution for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking for answers that help grow, develop, finance and improve their businesses, which in turn leads to significant growth and retention of businesses in the region. During the last 10 years, CenterPoint has counseled over 4,000 small business clients, creating and retaining over 6,000 jobs in the Southland region while providing or securing financing of over $118,000,000 that helped 72 small businesses expand, 84 businesses get started and 19 business acquisitions.   We do this through FREE one on one consulting, counseling, training, student / faculty / client involvement and resource partner development and financial support from the US Small Business Administration and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, (DCEO).  CenterPoint at Governors State University is the “preferred destination in the region” for economic development but we are always looking for good ideas that we can incorporate into our programs to help small business owners. Feel free to add your ideas for programs that would help you.

On January 30, 2010, Don Brozek of CenterPoint found himself judging Business Plans, one of the competition categories at a regional conference for Future Business Leaders of America held at Lincolnway West High School.

The conference and competitions attracted 250 high school students and their business class teachers.  The day started with a keynote address from State Senator Debbie Halvorson and continued with breakout sessions on a range of business and career development topics.

FBLA-PBL is the largest business career student organization in the world. It is a national organization which partners with PhI Beta Lambda business honor society to provide a quarter million high school students with the skills needed for careers in business and business-related fields.

After his busy day of judging and chatting to the participants at the conference Don was excited to see so many young people giving up their Saturdays, and getting involved and motivated by the conference events, saying ‘judging by the enthusiasm all around me on Saturday, I am optimistic again about our economic future, and the quality of the business plans was so good I hope we see many of them in CenterPoint ready to start their own businesses”. 

FBLA-PBL’s National Awards Program recognizes and rewards excellence in a broad range of business and career-related areas. Through state-based competition at the spring State Leadership Conferences, students compete in events testing their business knowledge and skills. Top state winners then are eligible to compete for honors at the National Leadership Conference each summer.Competitions ranged from creating and preparing business plans to banking and finance, marketing, management decision making, and website development. Winners advance to state and then national competitions.

Let us know how you feel about encouraging students to get involved in business activities while they are still in High School.