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Center for Business and Economic Development
Welcome to the Center for Business and Economic Development! This center exists as an outreach center for the School of Business. The Center for Business and Economic Development provides research, technical assistance and workforce development services using faculty, staff, and community resources to support and develop entrepreneurship, family businesses, and small and medium sized business (SMEs) as well other organizations in the extended community of the university. The Center also coordinates activities related to government grants, foundations, and other philanthropic entities and activities. From time to time, faculty of the School of Business provide a variety of consulting services, individually and in concert with others, to a variety of clients, paid and unpaid. This will not change with reactivation of this Center. A focus of this center, however, will be to expand and enhance the paid opportunities. These opportunities may exist with regard to individual or organizational entities or through grants, gifts, research programs or projects provided by government units, foundations or other entities. Initially, Dr. Smith, the Director, and a Graduate Assistant will be seeking grant and foundation oppportunities under a grant from the ESU Research and Grants Center. Meet our Director, "Dr. Bill." Since May, 2006, Mr. Bill Barnes has been very active in the role of CBED Training Director. This role formalizes our outside training activities and provides some new development opportunities. Mr. Barnes has coordinated a training program for Hopkins Manufacturing supervisors and developed a training program for the state Mental Health Association professionals, among others. He welcomes the opportunity to meet and talk with other entities interested in ESU training expertise; his email address is: wbarnes@emporia.edu
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The Flint Hills Training Workshop Series 2007 was very successful with workshops held January through September. Photos and information for 2007 workshops, as well as information related to 2008, can be found at the Workshops page.
The Flint Hills Tourism Coalition (a twenty-two county partnership) has been meeting monthly in a different county around the Flint Hills region each month, to promote tourism in the Flint Hills region. You can follow the activities of this organization at the Newsletters and Project links, to your left, above. Dr. Smith has been an active participant of and resource person to the Coalition. He current chairs the Website Task Force and is an active member of the Heritage Area Task Force. In May 2007, Dr. Smith became Chair of the Flint Hills Tourism Coalition. In August 2007, Dr. Smith became President of Flint Hills Tourism Coalition, Inc., and he will serve in that capacity through calendar year 2008.
During the Fall Semester of 2005, Dr. Smith worked with a group of MBA students on a series of "Entrepreneurship through AgriTourism" activities and exercises. They involved a number of local tourism providers and support groups. A class project was the development of a website to promote the Flint Hills of Kansas. This web site, with considerable addition effort by Allen Walker, of the students, and now the site webmaster, in early 2007 became the official website of the Flint Hills Tourism Coalition. You can view the site at: http://www.kansasflinthills.travel .
During the second half of 2005, Dr. Smith and a graduate assistant conducted a Visitation Data Collection project in Chase County under a grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce, Travel and Tourism Division.
Recent Activities
The current major program being developed by the Center for Business and Economic Development is the Rural Entrepreneurship and Applied Technology (REAT) Program . This program is broadbased and multi-year in scope. It relates to teaching, research and services by the faculty and staff of the ESU School of Businesss.
A series of white papers have been developed as we build our program. Read these, and current working papers by ESU faculty members involved in CBED activites on our CBED Reports page.
Mission Statement
To enhance external funding to the School of Business by leveraging existing knowledge, skills and abilities of School of Business personnel.
To enhance economic development in Kansas using resources available to the School of Business and partnering with others.