(WTOL) – The Small Business Development Center in Toledo has received an award for excellence that now sends them to a national competition.
SBDC is located inside the Toledo Edison Building downtown. It is essentially the local arm for the Federal Government's Small Business Administration.
Bill Wersell is the Director of the SBDC, which gives free counseling to people starting a business. But with the economy still bouncing back, the center has changed their focus from getting businesses off the ground, to keeping them alive.
"We learned that we could help them to renegotiate some of their existing debt if we had a willing client and a willing bank to participate with us," said Wersell.
They call it their "Triage" program. In it the SBDC helps businesses cut costs, find new markets, re-engineer products, and even renegotiate terms of loans.
"We had about 30 success programs, and we renegotiated about $15(M) worth of debt," said Wersell.
Local banks like Huntington Bank have used SBDC.
Jeremy Gutierrez is the Business Banking Marketing Manager for Huntington; he has worked very closely with Wersell's team.
"They armed the company with the tools to help sustain them in the future, and then his team actually exits the scene and from a banker's perspective, that's fantastic," said Gutierrez. "They're not only giving them fish. They're teaching them how to fish."
It is the "Triage" program that earned the SBDC the 2011 Award for "Excellence and Innovation," beating out every other chapter around the Great Lakes.
The SBDC is now among a select group of finalists for the national award, which will be announced in May.
