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Our
Initiatives and Programs
Entrepreneurs
2000
Some
Thoughts from the Director...
On
Entrepreneurism and
Small Business Development:
For many years Mathews and Virginia’s Chesapeake Country region have
been suffering from a youth and brain "drain" out of our area
and into the great suburban and urban centers that surround us. These
youth leave us for a variety of reasons - employment opportunities,
cultural amenities, affordable, quality housing, quality schools, and
for the company of other youth. A few stay in our community, but by
making this choice these youth often believe that they are
"forced" to settle for lower wages and less opportunity for
themselves and their family. In fact, today’s youth have within their
reach more economic opportunity than they realize. They simply don’t
know where to look for it.
The process of cultivating
entrepreneurs is often simply a process of opening eyes to the
opportunities that surround us today, but which are not readily apparent
to someone not exposed to these opportunities before. It has been said
that most people go through life asleep, while the remainder live in a
constant state of amazement. This latter group have had their eyes
opened to the opportunity that surrounds us.
For example, the
telecommunications revolution has brought real opportunity to Mathews,
and to communities like it across the world. The secret to capitalizing
on this opportunity is to help people to understand how they as
individuals might personally benefit from this opportunity. New careers
and professions can be practiced right here in Mathews that heretofore
would have been limited to major urban centers.
Helping people understand
entrepreneurial opportunity comes from education. Therefore, a primary
role that Forward Mathews can play in encouraging entrepreneurial
initiative is to ensure that the citizens of Mathews are adequately
enlightened to entrepreneurial opportunities available to them.
Once a person has his or her eyes
opened to the opportunities of entrepreneurism, that person will want to
choose a place to live and settle down to business. During the Age of
Industry, economic development was spurred by the unique natural
resources of a region. These resources supplied industry with the raw
materials necessary to produce products and services (in Mathews, the
primary natural resources have historically been seafood and timber). An
entrepreneur was thus forced to live wherever the needed resources were
located. Also, since business required huge amounts of labor, a person
would, more often than not, choose to be a laborer rather than an
entrepreneur, and have a good chance of being hired to do some, probably
well paid, mind-numbing job. Today, moderate skill-well paying jobs are
practically extinct. The few that remain, (shipyard jobs, for example),
are in decline.
In the 21st Century, economic
development in Mathews will be spurred by the individual entrepreneur.
It is the mobile entrepreneur, freed from the land by the
telecommunications revolution, who will determine the location of the
businesses of tomorrow. Whether that entrepreneur begins his or her life
in Mathews, or somewhere else, he or she must be sold on Mathews, or
will go elsewhere. This entrepreneur will be looking, first and
foremost, for a location that provides a unique and desirable atmosphere
that appeals to him or her personally. This first attractive quality is
not business related. The climate, culture, and particular unique
characteristics of a region are the first essential attractive elements.
Most areas lack this "uniqueness," so the battle among
communities to attract entrepreneurs is narrowed. The second level of
competition between the surviving communities will require these
communities to satisfy, at minimum, certain key and essential issues of
interest to the 21st Century entrepreneur. Primary among these are the
building blocks of economic growth:
1. Education;
2. Infrastructure;
3. Quality of Life;
4. Sound Government;
5. Private Leadership; and
6. Economic Development.
THIS SITE LAST UPDATED
AUGUST 4, 2002
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