Grants pursued to revive ‘incubabor' for entrepreneurs

By BENNETT HALL
Gazette-Times business editor

Its home has been demolished, its client list has shrunk to zero and its plan to move into a Philomath industrial park has evaporated, but supporters of the Business Enterprise Center are not giving up. Instead, they are launching a $4 million fund-raising effort to revive the dormant incubator.

The plan calls for raising nearly $3 million in public and private money to construct a 20,000-square-foot building to house multiple start-up businesses. An additional $1 million is being sought as an endowment to finance operating expenses and provide a cushion against unexpected costs.

"It's ambitious, but we have hired a lobbying firm," said Jeff Peterman, who sits on the organization's board of directors. "They've given us a lot of reason to feel good about being able to obtain funds from the state or the feds."

The Business Enterprise Center — known affectionately as the BEC in the local business community — was one of the most successful business incubators in the state, nurturing more than 85 start-up companies during its 15-year run.

In a low-slung, unassuming complex of blue-gray buildings at Northwest Ninth Street and Starker Avenue, the BEC offered reception, mailing, copying and other business services for a modest rate. The advice of volunteer business experts and the camaraderie of fellow entrepreneurs came at no extra charge.

It helped small companies look like big-leaguers to the outside world and launched scores of start-ups on the path to success. One of them was Green Pasture Software, which Peterman and co-founder Rob Grause grew from a two-man shop to a $3 million-a-year firm that was bought out by corporate colossus IBM in December 2003.

That same month, the BEC lost its subsidized lease arrangement and began hunting for a new home. A plan to move into a new building in the Lakeside Industrial Park in Philomath came to naught, along with a $600,000 grant to help finance the move, and the BEC lapsed into a state of hibernation.

The latest blow — more symbolic than real — came early this month when the BEC's longtime home on Ninth Street was knocked down to make room for a new Goodwill Industries thrift shop.

In the meantime, however, the organization's board has not been idle, appointing a nine-member committee to create a new business plan to guide the incubator into the future.

At the heart of the plan is a determination to find a long-term solution to the BEC's financial woes.

"Part of this is to come up with a sustainable model," said Larry Plotkin, a Hewlett-Packard Co. manager who worked on the business plan and serves as president of the BEC's board of directors.

"A sustainable model really means we need to own our building. We can't pay a mortgage and continue to provide the services we need to provide."

So far, the organization has raised between $50,000 and $100,000 so far, most of which has been used to hire the Salem lobbying firm WilliamsPrice to seek government support for the project, Plotkin said. At the same time, the board has begun the quest for donations from other sources.

"We're hitting up some foundations," Plotkin said. "We've also done some private local fund raising."

The fund-raising target could come way down if the board can persuade the owner of a suitable building to donate it to the cause, Plotkin said, but no such offer has been made to date.

No location has been selected as the site for a new BEC incubator, although Plotkin said space in the proposed Oregon State University research park could be ideal.

In the short term, the board hopes to raise enough cash to restart incubator operations on a limited scale, if only to keep a heartbeat going at the organization.

"We believe the earliest we could realistically build a building is about three years," Plotkin said. "That's a long hibernation."

For the sake of the next generation of local entrepreneurs, Peterman hopes the Business Enterprise Center can indeed rise again. That's why he continues to serve on the board — to repay the organization for helping him and his partner succeed when they could easily have failed.

"We were a couple of technologists that knew nothing about running a business," Peterman said. "If it wasn't for the BEC, I'm sure we wouldn't have made it past year one."

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times. He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.