Making a Difference:
AORIC Business Facilitation

The Appalachian Ohio Regional Investment Coalition (AORIC) helps to connect businesses with clients and enables them to better network with other business people, says Matthew Bennett of Dovetail Construction Company.

Jeannie Amash owns and operates Little Cities Dance, a new all-ages dance studio that features a variety of classes. Her business, located in the same Glouster building that houses Dovetail Construction, caught the eye of Rural Action Business Facilitator Tom Brenner.

“Tom was really helpful,” she says. “He encouraged me to write a business plan and to develop a vision of what I wanted.”

Amash and Bennett are among a growing number of local entrepreneurs who welcome AORIC’s efforts to make Southeast Ohio’s business climate more favorable for businesses in the region. According to Brenner, “Their restoration of a building in downtown Glouster is an example of the entrepreneurial spirit that is rejuvenating the economy of Southeast Ohio.”

Several ongoing AORIC-sponsored projects are drawing the interest of landowners and business people like Bennett: (1) exploring options for adding value to local timber by manufacturing wood products, (2) a proposed lumber certification process to provide certain guarantees that trees are harvested in a manner sensitive to the environment, and (3) exploratory studies on existing and potential markets for wood products from the region.

“ We are interested in using local timber for log homes and other lumber products,” he adds. “I have attended several meetings with Tom where we discussed possibilities with pine growers.” Morgan County, in particular, has large stands of maturing pine trees, many of which are currently being chipped for paper pulp.

What AORIC is and does
Working within the 29-county Appalachian Ohio region, a group of experienced leaders and organizations have formed the active partnership known as the Appalachian Ohio Regional Investment Coalition (AORIC). Partners are the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), the Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development (COAD), the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, The Nature Conservancy, the Ohio Arts Council, Rural Action and Planning Adams County’s Tomorrow (PACT). ILGARD (Institute for Local Government, Administration and Rural Development) at Ohio University is the project manager for the coalition.

AORIC works with local communities to:
• expand entrepreneurial capacity,
• align local resources, and
• mobilize policy initiatives that will support this approach, strengthening this region’s overall economic performance.

Toward these ends, the partnership works to strategically build a healthy entrepreneurial economy in Southeast Ohio through programs and services designed to increase the number of successful entrepreneurs, creating wealth and quality jobs.

In 2001 the National Rural Funders Collaborative (NRFC), a group comprised of private foundations interested in combining their assets with local resources and community partners, selected AORIC and three other collaborative organizations out of 284 applicants for support. Through this arrangement, the NRFC has funded AORIC by providing $250,000 for each of the partnership’s three years.

AORIC submitted its 2001 proposal as a way to foster entrepreneurial activity and business development in depressed areas of Appalachian Ohio, so as to help potential business owners obtain the assistance necessary to bring good ideas to fruition. Focusing on three enterprise sectors—forestry, agriculture and heritage tourism—the project represents a new grassroots- and outreach-oriented approach aimed at taking help directly to these business people’s hometowns instead of requiring them to come to larger city centers like Athens or Marietta for assistance.

Entrepreneur Support Network
Knowing that candidates have a need for three areas of expertise—marketing, financing and product development—AORIC has begun to develop an Entrepreneur Support Network (ESN) to build solid community support systems. It is hoped that ESN advisory teams, made up of community leaders providing specialized assistance like lawyers, bankers, accountants, other business people, civic leaders and local government officials, can help entrepreneurs who lack information or skills in one or two of these areas fill in the gaps in their knowledge. ESN advisers can also help with creative funding solutions.
The ESN’s importance is hard to overstate. Because of the high percentage of failed startups, a network of support can prove crucial to any new business’s long-term viability.

According to Larry Fisher, Director of Food Ventures at ACEnet, “this area needs a comprehensive plan to address the growing needs of entrepreneurs and to connect them with the large array of services available throughout the region. AORIC acts to connect these small businesses and startups with the resources of our area through a method called business facilitation.”

Through AORIC, ESN members are currently being identified to provide assistance on real projects in Morgan, Monroe and Adams Counties. Rural Action Business Facilitator Tom Brenner, for instance, works in Morgan County to discover and connect the region’s entrepreneurs with business resources and community support that can enable their success and prosperity in a sustainable economy.

Brenner does this by arranging town meetings at which Morgan County citizens have begun to envision future collaborations involving local tourism, craftsmanship and marketing of value-added products derived from natural sources such as timber. He is assisted by Mary Steinmaus, Director of Community Development, who works to strengthen the civic sector and to identify training needs for entrepreneurs and ESN members.

In the spring and early summer of 2003, a series of meetings took place in McConnelsville with the intention of letting small business owners and potential entrepreneurs meet with Small Business Development Center representatives and Morgan County’s economic development director to learn about available services.

Meanwhile, AORIC held a heritage tourism roundtable at the Rose Cottage Inn near Glouster for owners of bed-and-breakfasts, retreats, rental cabins, etc., who want to build a cooperative network focusing on shared interests. Brenner also facilitates a possible business venture meant to enable the Ohio Premium Pine Growers Cooperative to manufacture log cabin kits for local as well as export marketing.

Facing Challenges
Fisher says that, along with various partners, AORIC is “blazing a trail for a new model of sustainable economic development in a rural landscape.” Like any other trailblazer, this venture encounters challenges. Fisher identifies three in particular:

• Building acceptance among local leaders, economic development professionals and business support agencies as part of a community’s economic development strategy;

• A strong desire to connect sustainable development to the environment and citizens’ social welfare, encouraging environmentally responsible development while providing living wage jobs and health benefits to the region’s people; and

• The need to focus on policy issues that directly impact entrepreneurs and small enterprises, like tax incentives, access to capital and entrepreneur training.

“ Perhaps the greatest challenge for the AORIC collaboration,” Fisher adds, “will be finding enough resources and energy to sustain our efforts over the long haul and expand into other communities and counties within our region.”

Brenner, whose greatest challenge is discovering potential entrepreneurs, invites readers to introduce him to anyone interested in starting a business.

He says he wants to meet “people with recipes for food products, artists and crafts people wanting to market their handiwork, farmers, gardeners, herbalists, foresters and others with a desire to earn income with activities they passionately enjoy doing. Folks may have an idea for a product or service,” he points out, “but don’t always know how to start developing that idea into the reality of a business. I can help them think through the business development process and connect them to community resources.”

To learn more, contact Mary Steinmaus at 767-4938 or
Tom Brenner at 696-0211.

--Rural Report, Fall 2003

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