Transcript- Episode 125: Women’s Business Centers: The Silent Giants of Entrepreneurial Advocacy with Claudia Viek, Founder & Catalyst of the Invest in Women Entrepreneurship Initiative Episode 125

00:00:00 - Claudia Viek

Think about self employment as being part of your career path and how do you bring your skills into the marketplace and that sometimes you need some coaching for that. You need to find a coach or an advisor. Again, looking around you, maybe somebody who isn't in your immediate family or church, but whose ideas and intelligence you respect and experience. You respect.

 

00:00:28 - Christina Barsi

The workforce landscape is rapidly changing. Educators and their institutions need to keep up. Preparing students before they enter the workforce. To make our communities and businesses stronger is at the core of getting an education. But we need to understand how to change and adjust so that we can begin to project where things are headed before we even get there. So how do we begin to predict the future?

 

00:00:53 - Salvatrice Cummo

Hi, I'm Salvatrice Cummo, vice president of economic and workforce development at Pasadena City College and host of this podcast.

 

00:01:01 - Christina Barsi

And I'm Christina Barsi, producer, co host.

 

00:01:04 - Salvatrice Cummo

Of this podcast and we are starting the conversation about the future of work. We'll explore topics like how education can partner with industry, how to be more equitable, and how to attain one of our highest goals, more internships and PCC. Students in the workforce we at Pasadena City College want to lead the charge in closing the gap between what our students are learning and what the demands of the workforce will be once they entertained. This is a conversation that impacts all of us. You, the employers, the policymakers, the educational institutions, and the community as a whole.

 

00:01:39 - Christina Barsi

We believe change happens when we work together, and it all starts with having a conversation. I'm Christina Barci.

 

00:01:47 - Salvatrice Cummo

And I'm Salvatrice Cummo and this is the future of work.

 

00:01:52 - Salvatrice Cummo

Hi, welcome back to the Future of Work podcast. I am your host, Doctor Salvatrice Kumo. Today we're in for a real treat. Our guest has truly shaped the landscape of entrepreneurship and small business development. Joining us is the incredible Claudia Wieck, who has been instrumental in helping start the women's business center at Pasadena City College. Claudia founded the Renaissance Entrepreneurship center in San Francisco where she has spent 14 years building one of the first programs of its kind in the country. She has also led Cameo, the statewide network of micro business development programs and lenders, and started the investment in Women Entrepreneurs Initiative. We are absolutely thrilled to have Claudia with us today to discuss the crucial theme of entrepreneurial training and support for self employed individuals. With her extensive background and hands on approach, she is the perfect person to share insights on how we can create effective entrepreneurial training programs and how community support systems can drive the success of small businesses. Welcome to the show Claudia. Such an honor to have you here.

 

00:03:06 - Claudia Viek

Thank you, Salvatrice. I feel the same way. I feel that we are really addressing very key issues for the community college, and it's in the future of work, really. So thank you for this opportunity.

 

00:03:18 - Salvatrice Cummo

You're very, very welcome. I usually just dive right in. So if it's okay, let's get the show on the road here. You have been a pioneer in entrepreneurial training since the 1980s, and what I'd like to ask you is what initially inspired you to focus on this area and what has kept you passionate over the years? Not to mention, I'd love for you to share how you helped start the women's business center at PCC.

 

00:03:48 - Claudia Viek

Well, Savatrice, that was you, really. And you were very entrepreneurial in identifying resource people who could advise you on your application and the strategies. And it was delightful having you approach me in that respect, because I actually am the state advocate for the California Women's Business Center Network, which now, thanks to your college, just recently getting an award from SBA, we now number 21 women's business centers in California, more than twice as many as any other state, which I think is absolutely appropriate.

 

00:04:25 - Salvatrice Cummo

Yes, that's something to celebrate, for sure.

 

00:04:28 - Claudia Viek

Yep. Women power. So really, my role was to help build a strong network of women's business centers and to support the field. Personally, I want to see it turned into a movement, and I think we're on the way. I want to create excitement about the economic impacts of women entrepreneurs and how this is important to our communities. That's what keeps me passionate about targeting women. My history has been, of course, with men and women entrepreneurs in socially and economically diverse settings. I think it's very important to bring the marketplace of all of our cultures together. And that's been something that's motivated me as well. I just feel so strongly that entrepreneurship is not only a critical success factor for California's economy, but also for the economy of the country.

 

00:05:23 - Salvatrice Cummo

I couldn't agree with you more. And to see this work being amplified, and we use the word initiative very loosely, but maybe the most appropriate word is focus. So to have the focus directed around women entrepreneurs and small business assistants. And we saw a lot of growth in our entrepreneurial ecosystem post-COVID and during COVID actually right during that time and now post, and we're technically still in the recovery phase. We still continue to grow, which really underscores what you just said a moment ago about we have double the amount of women's business centers than any other state. And so I'm really thankful that you mentioned that. And also honored to be working alongside with you in this focus. Which leads me to ask you, we've emphasized, and you've emphasized how important hands-on and practical entrepreneurial training programs are, both here just now and then, of course, on our own one-on-one discussions, could you share with our audience what you believe are the key components of an effective entrepreneurial training program, especially for our community colleges here in California?

 

00:06:41 - Claudia Viek

Yes, I'm happy to do that, and I have shared that with the sector navigators in the past. So I'm happy to repeat because I think it's just as relevant today as it was when we started Renaissance back in the late eighties. First of all, the business skills need to be taught by successful practitioners. Practical, hands on training is just essential. These practitioners are able to give real world examples and tell stories from their own experiences. And I'll give you an example from my own history. Cece Phillips was a real mentor to me, as it turned out. But she was a graduate of Renaissance. She was a successful black entrepreneur. She started an indoor plants company. She had eight employees. She had big corporate contracts from supplier diversity contracts. So she was a marketing expert. She was really experienced in the trenches when she taught marketing to our entrepreneur training program, our business planning class. She taught from the standpoint, not theoretical, but really practical experience. She's just one example of the amazing instructors I've worked with in the past, not just at Renaissance, but at other women's business centers too. But I think that that's one of the critical success factors for any entrepreneurship program that serves the community, as I know the community colleges wish to do and do is to have this type of practical training or practitioners. The other aspects are the availability of peer support to create ongoing support mechanisms that are beyond just the classroom or take the classroom to another level to encourage that, support it, facilitate it, fund it. Not to say, oh, nice, get together kids after work sometime, but you can virtually now do breakout rooms with people that are really, they're pretty good. I mean, I think it's still questionable, virtual versus in person. And I think it depends on what community you're part of and where you live. Rural can be very different from urban. Another technique that we taught too was to build a personal board of directors for yourself. Those are things that you don't normally get out of just a classroom based training, but it really is something that addresses the holistic needs of an entrepreneur. So again, practical training, peer support, facilitated peer support and also techniques such as building a personal board of advisors.

 

00:09:23 - Salvatrice Cummo

And sometimes when I hear you say the words, personal board of advisors. Would you agree that that could also look like just your network, just a body of network around you and it's not necessarily tied to. Sometimes when we hear board of directors, we tie it to a classification, a business classification, and you're saying that's not the case. Like, regardless of your business classification, regardless of the industry in which you're building your business, you should always, always have, like the support network around you as an advisory group.

 

00:09:56 - Claudia Viek

Right. And also. But be mindful of who you invite, people who are going to give you honest feedback, people who supplement your skills, who aren't just the same as you, but they actually are accountants or they're marketing experts, or they know something about the industry that you don't know. Sometimes you can make them lunch once a quarter or meet with them individually, but there's ways that we have taught people how to do that and encourage them to do that. People also like to help others, and I found successful entrepreneurs like to help others coming after them. And usually we'll have people who will be very open and warm to that idea. That's one technique. And certainly there are many, many resources in the community.

 

00:10:44 - Salvatrice Cummo

Sure. And our center, all centers, women business centers, in my humble opinion, act as that personal advisory board. Right. It's a built in advisory board who could then share their own respective networks.

 

00:11:00 - Claudia Viek

Right.

 

00:11:00 - Salvatrice Cummo

That's really the beauty. That's the beauty of our centers, is to have that network of support.

 

00:11:06 - Claudia Viek

Yes. Again, that's what I call a critical success factor. It's built into, baked into the model and is different from other business assistance programs. And I think if the community college is serious about really supporting sustainability and economic impact, because you have to justify where you're doing it, having a form of support and network support, and to maintain that, I think that's very essential component.

 

00:11:34 - Salvatrice Cummo

And also, too, I'm just thinking out loud with the segments or subjects to enhance our entrepreneurial training programs here within our community college system. I view, personally, I view women's business centers as a complementary added expertise, aligning with curriculum and aligning with the course.

 

00:11:56 - Claudia Viek

That's glad to hear that you have.

 

00:11:58 - Salvatrice Cummo

A built in network of experts alongside you that you can work with while training and teaching our students.

 

00:12:07 - Claudia Viek

Yes, that's so special and important to recognize and remember, too, women's business centers do serve men and welcome men. So that we have like 25% to 30% in some cases, depending on where you're located, have men attending because they need that holistic approach as well.

 

00:12:25 - Salvatrice Cummo

Right. We mentioned communities. Right. So let's segue into that area. When we think about local communities and support systems, we know that they have incredible impact. Our local communities have incredible impact and influence over women entrepreneurs. Perhaps you can spend some time giving us some examples of how community support has directly contributed to success stories of entrepreneurs that you personally have worked with.

 

00:12:51 - Claudia Viek

Well, I'm going to talk about one in particular that's had actually a national impact. It's not a specific entrepreneur, but women's business centers have been helping childcare businesses start up and grow. I'm talking not so much just the center based care, but the family day care, often immigrant women helping other women in their communities to enter the workforce by providing licensed childcare. And we found that women's business centers were really key to helping people start up to seeing this service as a business, understanding cash flow, all of those key elements, and then also helping them get access to small grants. And that happened more during the pandemic, but it's still happening in certain counties, enlightened counties today. And we would love to see the state involved in that again through their workforce. The labor, state labor agency had funded some of that. Last year, eight women's business centers helped 3400 new slots of childcare get started in California.

 

00:13:56 - Salvatrice Cummo

Amazing.

 

00:13:57 - Claudia Viek

That's really amazing. And we were asked to submit our data to the Biden administration and then they just recently put out a request for proposals for child care grants nationally. And I feel very proud of our women's business centers in California that helped make that case for the role of women's business centers and business assistants in something so vital to our workforce and to the health of children. Good licensed childcare. So that's one example. And that takes a village too, of different groups that are supportive of childcare working with women's business centers. So it wasn't just them by themselves. Nonprofit lenders, they're called cdfIs. Community development financial institutions are also part of the support system. They're more flexible in their underwriting criteria. When they look at newer businesses that may not have perfect credit, for example, they're more flexible in that. And they also provide some advice to the loan applicant that come to them. So they're important and growing sector. When I was at Renaissance, we created a marketplace and directory of entrepreneurs that's going, wow, stronger than ever. There's even more activity to promote the business to business and also measure the dollars that are generated from creating this marketplace. Renaissance also has a women focused marketplace and gets folks together every couple of months. They have maybe 30 to 40 women show up every month, every other month, and have an event facilitated event to again cultivate that network of support and the business to business that always comes out of it. Women's business centers also focus on setting up online sales. For example, setting up an Etsy shop, working with Shopify. Those are some of the what I call support systems in your community that is very important, an organization that will help you do that. Just another example of a business that did benefit in this way from this community. This village of support is a company called Mama's Medicinals, and they're up in Ukiah. They're both a small shop selling body products, body care products, and a very wonderful solve. They got advice from the women's business center in Mendocino. They got their first loan. Now they have both their shop in Ukiah and a large online sales.

 

00:16:32 - Salvatrice Cummo

Excellent.

 

00:16:33 - Claudia Viek

I think getting close to a million in sales. So they're very small. So that's not untypical, but it takes time. You have to work with an organization over time, not just a semester. So that's part of the challenge for community colleges to look at how they can design a program that supersedes the semester system.

 

00:16:54 - Salvatrice Cummo

Love that. And I think that's where the complementary services of the women's business centers and the expertise that live there is beneficial for all. You know, entrepreneurship, we know, lives across multiple disciplines. It doesn't live just in the discipline of business administration or some community colleges have in a precise entrepreneurial program or specific entrepreneurial program, but entrepreneurship lives everywhere. So I love the idea of that service or that partnership, that power partnership across all disciplines. You mentioned the word challenge. You and I both know and have been very well close to the trials and tribulations of integrating entrepreneurial training programs, whether it's in our local communities or in an institution like ours at a community college. And typically, those challenges are, you know, funding. Right. Or the overall awareness that this is a focus in which our communities and our colleges could be amplifying. So through your lens, Claudia, what do you think? Are some specific legislative changes or support mechanisms. Right. That we think could help overcome the funding and awareness issues that we face?

 

00:18:13 - Claudia Viek

Well, first we have to have the political will. Internally, there's got to be a belief that self employment is, in fact, the labor market trend, and that most workers are going to be employed. Certainly they'll be employed in a w, two regular job, but many, many will be self employed from time to time, whether they're a contractor, a carpenter or contractor, whether they're a hairdresser whether they're a gardener or a horticulturalist, even childcare, they get their credential through the community college. My son did that, actually. And then they'll work for a childcare program, and then they'll realize they can actually do better by opening up their own maybe home based program and be able to grow from there. That's what I mean by recognition of the economic realities and the fact that this is what increases household income, of research that shows that having a micro entrepreneur in the household actually increases household wealth. I think, to be very specific, I thought about what you asked, and I think some policies for the community college, California community colleges, would be to maybe set up a special fund for non credentialed instructors so that we could have that practical, hands on training. We need to celebrate the economic impacts of our graduates and follow them over time through the peer support. You know, whatever it takes, we have to create incentives for this more grassroots, community based approach. It's not a university approach. It's really different. And community colleges are really in some ways the best positioned to embrace this. But it means moving outside of some of the boxes that have been created. I don't know how flexible those boxes could be. And that's why I think political will is so important.

 

00:20:14 - Salvatrice Cummo

You know, data gathering is our bread and butter, right? Both in your world and in my world. And that's how we measure success. You know, and I think that a lot of what you mentioned, that political will is essential, and then the conduit, right, or the driver or the amplifier, whatever, whatever term we want to use, is that data to demonstrate that the need is there, the desire is there, and the will is there. So when we talk about metrics a little bit and data gathering, and that's typically how we validate the need for funding and or awareness. Could you elaborate a little bit about how metrics are collected and why they are crucial for demonstrating impact of these programs, such as the programs held within the women's business center?

 

00:21:04 - Claudia Viek

Well, first of all, for people like you and me who are leading the charge, we can't get out of bed in the morning unless we feel like we're making a difference. You know, who cares, right? You've got to know that someone is benefiting and how they're benefiting. It's very important to create these trust relationships with your students, because in order to survey them, you need to do it over time. It's not just putting, placing somebody in a job and then you have them on the unemployment insurance rolls and 90 days later you can say, okay, a successful placement and move on. With small businesses, you're looking at one to two years, sometimes longer, in that startup trajectory. So you need to have a trust built with the students to be able to get the information you need to show the impact. So an annual survey is essential. Hire students to carry it out, to make phone calls, to send emails, following up, getting a good cross section, getting a good percentage. Maybe create incentives for people to fill out the survey gift cards for the first 50 responses. As I said before, I think the community colleges has a huge potential for stimulating entrepreneurship at the local levels and to realize that micro businesses, these are non employer businesses, represent 87% of all businesses and in California particularly, and half of all job creation, which is self employment, plus, you know, one to five other employees. So they are employers. They're self employers and employers of others, especially if you look at the independent contractor status, we have a lot of other entrepreneurs hired as independent contractors, so it's hard again to identify they're not w two s. But if you survey your graduates or your clients, you will find out how many people they're actually putting to work and you can extrapolate economic value from that. Sometimes the structure and bureaucracy of the community college system works against the need for the flexibility and response of the marketplace. I don't know if you have some ideas yourself salvatrise how to work around that. That is something that I know that we have all these grand ideas and then we're kind of faced with, well, what you can do and what you can't do. Again, political will or sitting down around the table. Sometimes I call it the kitchen table to really look at the realities of our communities and what do people really need, what language do they need it delivered in and what kind of support over time do they need to make it work? And again, I think the community colleges are very well positioned because of how people see you as just an essential step up if you're low income, low moderate income, particularly with the cost of colleges nowadays, a lot of people are going to community college because that's it, you know, and they need to look at their future. And if you offer entrepreneurship in an exciting modality, could be something, right.

 

00:24:14 - Salvatrice Cummo

We're definitely the best business decision, I think, when we're thinking about, and I shared this with my daughter, my daughter attends Pasadena City College as well. And we talk about that very often as the look at the big picture. The big picture. You have to treat sometimes your educational academic journey as a business decision. And in looking at all of the services, everything that a community college has access to access services, wraparound services particularly. It really is the best decision, especially when community colleges have such essential and critical centers like the women's business centers and others that allow for that additional support in their academic journey.

 

00:24:58 - Claudia Viek

Yeah, it's very attractive. When you think about it, it's a very exciting offer.

 

00:25:02 - Salvatrice Cummo

I'm going to switch gears just a little bit and ask you about key takeaways. So we've talked quite a bit about the essentials to a women's business center and the essentials of really kind of supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Given this is the future of work podcast, I wanted to ask you, what are some key takeaways that you would want our listener to understand from our conversation today about entrepreneurship training and support for their own endeavors and their own future as they build their ventures?

 

00:25:35 - Claudia Viek

I think we've said some things for the people who work in the system and educational systems, some of the realities that really have to be grasped. But there's a cliche which is if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And it's true, but there are many techniques. The lean canvas, you know, it doesn't have to be something a two inch business plan, you know, it can be something flexible and ever changing. As you analyze the marketplace and your own financials and things like that, it's in a very interactive document. So planning, business planning, getting that support is important. Also, think about self employment as being part of your career path. And how do you bring your skills into the marketplace? And that sometimes you need some coaching for that you need to find a coach or an advisor. Again, looking around you, maybe somebody who isn't in your immediate family or church, but whose ideas and intelligence you respect and experience you respect. You know, how can I best bring my skills into the marketplace? And to remember, too, that self employment does supplement family income. Research has shown that households have a micro entrepreneur in their household do better. Their children do better academically too. And then I would also say, ask for help. And another cliche, you don't know what you don't know, right? But it's true. If you're uncomfortable with the uncertainty of the income stream from someone you know, that's been, that's a major barrier for people to go out on their own, to take what they see as a risk. But that discomfort sense of precarity can be offset by your training and planning. Having cash flow analysis skills, very simple. I know because I was a math phobe when I learned cash flow projection management for my nonprofit, which is the same as a small business, it was like a bible. It was like, opened up my control over my future. And I think it helped make me successful to have a cash or a bottom line view every month to see where you stand regarding your projections. It's a really empowering experience. So I would say get the peer support and also in addition to the training in things like cash flow management, also the support that you get from your peers helps to offset your discomfort with the risk, the perceived risk. Access to capital is important, too, to be able to understand how much debt could you really handle not to be afraid of debt.

 

00:28:11 - Claudia Viek

Because debt helps you build assets. I find with women very afraid of getting into debt for a lot of good reasons, but sometimes having that, again, your peer support, you see, oh, here is this childcare program, and she borrowed $5,000 and looks what she was able to do to increase the number of kids in her center because she was able to get the equipment or put on an addition or something like that. And when you see other people doing it, then you feel more confident about doing it yourself. Having access to capital and the right kind of capital is important. And community based, nonprofit, more and more. There are statewide and local nonprofit lenders that I'd like to really recommend. And all the women's business centers know where they are.

 

00:28:58 - Salvatrice Cummo

You're more than welcome to recommend them now if you want.

 

00:29:01 - Claudia Viek

Well, gosh, Los Angeles has a lot of them. Pace. Pace. They're a large CDFI. I think there's one in Pasadena, actually. Yeah, been around for a long time. Yes, that's right. I knew the founder. I won't go into all of the ones, but cameo has a listing. California association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity. CamEO is a statewide, like a trade association. And all of the CDFIs, I think there are 60 of them now in California, are members. And you can get access to that and decide which ones you would want to work with. And some of them work wide as well. There are many, many good ones that really listen to the borrowers that come in. They're not treating you like a pariah. Like, people are often uncomfortable going into banks because they feel they're not going to be treated respectfully for good reason. Not all banks or just be understood.

 

00:30:03 - Salvatrice Cummo

And understand where they're coming from and their need.

 

00:30:06 - Claudia Viek

Right? Oh, I know there's one in the Inland Empire, but they also, I think will work outside into the La region. Is ampacitive Pac wonderful people, very warm and have some great products, really great products in fact, the SBA has just announced that they'll have a line of credit product available. And that is what so many businesses and the women owned businesses I've worked with and surveyed. This is a huge need, is to be able to have a line that you can use and pay back, you know, pay down again and use and pay down again. And it really helps you with that cash flow management that I mentioned earlier. I didn't give too much, but I think that those are pretty practical takeaways.

 

00:30:50 - Salvatrice Cummo

Thank you, Claudia. That's incredibly important information. I wanted to also ask you this question. For the listener who wants to get involved and mobilize their own respective communities around entrepreneurial training, what advice would you give them?

 

00:31:03 - Claudia Viek

You have to do a local assessment of your resources, or your local resources. So you have to see what's really out there. And you need to engage your local officials, your mayor's office, your city council members, your chamber of commerce, your SBDC and its host. I talked about the kitchen table. So much of my successful activism has been sitting down with usually women around a kitchen table, literally, sometimes ladies rooms, too. They work quite well and just kind of talking about what's needed and where the gaps are, getting something started. That's a really grassroots way of approaching it. But then, you know, you have your pulse on the community. You're not just putting something top down, but it's coming from. It's being co created by your community. And I think that's much more of a recipe for success than when you have a top down approach and say, oh, let's have an entrepreneur program, and we're going to have these tenured professors who have never run a business in their life before, but they need the work. We need to put them to work, you know? No, that's not the approach. We have to work with the people and the successful people that we see. Like I mentioned, Cece Phillips, who was a successful women's business owner who we hired to come in and teach, but she also was a role model for others who looked like her and who really related to her. They got the word of mouth out in their communities. And so Renaissance really had a huge impact on black and latino communities as a result of the fact that we actively promoted the successes of the folks that came through. How you market the program is just as important as, you know, starting up. Who are the spokespeople for the program? So those are the sort of the three things that I can think of is really assess what you've got, engage your local officials, and then sit down with some key people who can make it happen, type people and talk about how it could work.

 

00:33:14 - Salvatrice Cummo

Thank you. Thank you. I'll tell you what, this has been such a delightful conversation, and I always enjoy our conversations on or off the mic. But I look forward to working closer with you now with the women's business center. And whether it's for the center or anything else, you know, we are here. We are here for you. I'm 100% supporter advocator for entrepreneurship, so you can always count me in pretty much on anything. But for those who want to get in touch with you as it relates to entrepreneurship initiatives, just getting involved, what's the best way that they can reach you?

 

00:33:50 - Claudia Viek

It's invest in women entrepreneurs initiative. It's www.investinwomeninitiative.org. i think it'll lead you to my email. I'm pretty sure it's claudia. Investinwomeninitiative.org dot.

 

00:34:09 - Salvatrice Cummo

Fantastic. We'll put those in the show notes for our listener who wants to get in touch and get involved. They'll know exactly where to contact you. Thank you so much, claudia. It's been a pleasure.

 

00:34:18 - Claudia Viek

Well, it's a pleasure, man. I just want to do one little shout-out for you, too, Salvatrice. You've hired the right people for your women's business center. Lizzy is really, really sharp, and I think she's going to do a great job. And I think your approach, too, has been really, you're just doing it. All right. So I can't wait to see what your results are going to be at the end of the year.

 

00:34:41 - Salvatrice Cummo

Me, too. Thank you. Thank you. We're really excited about it. Lizzy is an absolute rock star. We're just hitting the ground running. We are very blessed here and lucky to have such a great support mechanism around us. I mean, talk about our own board of directors, right? Like, you're on that board. You didn't know that, but you are. We have, like, this beautiful community of support. We have our legislative supporters. We have our, you know, business leaders supporters here locally as well as throughout the county. And most importantly, our college believes in it. So our college appreciates and values our business community and understands the value of supporting our business community. And that's why we have a division of economic and Workforce Development is because our college knew. Look, if we wanted to continue to do the work that we do, we need to also be of support to the business community and allow for that growth and sustainability and infuse our community with talent, resources, funding, et cetera. So.

 

00:35:42 - Claudia Viek

Right. Yeah. I think it's important for the university, too, to look at its own supplier diversity and to work with the people coming out of the women's business center and the SBDCs. And that's where that marketplace concept is so important. Also, your chamber of commerce, to know that there are caterers, gardeners, auto repair mechanics. All of these people coming through the CTE are all of small business owners. They're paying local taxes. They're contributing to the community in so many ways.

 

00:36:13 - Salvatrice Cummo

So hiring our students, right?

 

00:36:16 - Claudia Viek

And they hire the students too. But when you hire a local business that comes through the, let's say, the women's business center and community college, you're going to multiply. Economic multiplier effect is so much stronger than when you procure, let's say, your equipment or your office supplies or whatever from a big chain store. I think it's important to also buy local, and you can do that through the community colleges, CTE graduates, too.

 

00:36:46 - Salvatrice Cummo

That's right. There's no doubt that the synergies between what community colleges do and what the women's business centers do and what you're doing through the initiative, there's no doubt that those are complementary synergies and that we should be working collectively as a body of support to our local community and business owners. So, Claudia, thank you so much. It's been an absolutely delightful conversation, and I look forward to working closer with you and your network, with the Women's Business center, and with any other initiative that you feel we could be a value to supporting any kind of entrepreneurial initiative. Thank you.

 

00:37:22 - Claudia Viek

Well, you're welcome. And I'm really honored that we were able to have this very important conversation that needs to happen even more. And I'm at your service to advocate for all the wonderful things you're doing, Salvatrice. So always feel free to call me.

 

00:37:37 - Salvatrice Cummo

Excellent. Thank you very much.

 

00:37:40 - Salvatrice Cummo

Thank you for listening to the future of work podcast. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite listening platform so you can easily get new episodes every Tuesday. You can reach out to us by clicking on the website link below in the show notes to collaborate partner, or.

 

00:37:56 - Salvatrice Cummo

Just chat about all things future of work.

 

00:37:59 - Salvatrice Cummo

We'd love to connect with you. All of us here at the future of work and Pasin City College wish.

 

00:38:04 - Salvatrice Cummo

You safety and wellness.