Special Items Funding Request - University of Houston-Victoria
Existing Special Items
Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
(University of Houston [lead institution] and UH-Victoria)
Current Biennial Funding: $4,300,000
Requested Biennial Funding: $4,400,000
The Small Business Development Center provides quality management and technical assistance to the small business communities of southeast Texas and the south Texas border.
The University of Houston SBDC has served more than 52,000 clients in 32 counties and more than 140 communities in Southeast Texas since its founding in 1984. It has helped create more than 25,000 new jobs as well as secure in excess of $450,000,000 in governmental contracts, loans, and equity capital for local businesses. More than 5,000 new businesses have been started with a survival rate that far exceeds the norm.
State funding also supports the University of Houston-Victoria SBDC, serving a 10-county region. This center manages the "Incubator Project" in cooperation with the City of Victoria and the Victoria Economic Development Corporation. The newest initiative of the UH SBDC, the Metropolitan program, funded during the last biennium, was successfully launched during FY98. The program targets low and moderate income neighborhoods to enhance the ability of entrepreneurs to start, operate, and grow businesses successfully.
Director: Carole Parks
University of Houston-Victoria
New Special Items
Center for Regional Outreach
(University of Houston-Victoria)
Requested Biennial Funding: $930,000
The Center for Regional Outreach will expand the training capacity for the region, consolidate existing data bases and add additional data of use to the region's corporate, industrial, governmental, professional and service sectors, provide a mechanism for regional relevant research, accumulate data and expertise to provide leadership in regional forecasting of workplace and community needs, and provide a centralized information base for increased internship and cooperative educational opportunities. The center will also connect to, and complement, the already UH-Victoria's existing Small Business Development Center and continuing education programs.
