SYRACUSE — The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Boots to Business program has trained 25,000 transitioning service members. Maria Contreras-Sweet, SBA administrator, made the announcement on April 21 at Syracuse University’s (SU) Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF). Boots to Business is the entrepreneurship track of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Transition […]
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SYRACUSE — The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Boots to Business program has trained 25,000 transitioning service members.
Maria Contreras-Sweet, SBA administrator, made the announcement on April 21 at Syracuse University’s (SU) Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF).
Boots to Business is the entrepreneurship track of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP).
It has provided entrepreneurship and business-planning training to members of the U.S. armed forces who are transitioning to civilian life, “giving them the tools to start their own successful companies,” according to an SBA news release announcing the number of those trained.
The SBA wants to “make certain” that the nation’s men and women in uniform “get the support that they need” to transition out into American-civilian life, Contreras-
Sweet said in her remarks at the IVMF.
“Syracuse [University] stood up [with a] really important program that we noted and seized and so they’ve become very important partners for the SBA,” she added.
Contreras-Sweet said she’s “really proud” that SU helped the SBA launch the Boots to Business initiative.
Boots to Business helps veterans “in that transition from their uniformed life into a civilian life,” said Contreras-Sweet.
In the SBA news release, Contreras-Sweet described the program’s purpose.
“Boots to Business helps our service members and their spouses explore careers in entrepreneurship by showing them how to apply their military skills to start and grow their business. Our veterans deserve every chance at success, and our economic future requires that we help them acquire the skills necessary to start the next generation of great American businesses,” the SBA administrator said.
Boots to Business is now available on more than 165 military installations worldwide, the SBA said in the release.
The training program provides military service members and their spouses the opportunity to explore business ownership and self-employment; helps them evaluate the feasibility of their business concepts; and connects the aspiring business owners to SBA’s network of resource partners, the agency said.
Initiated as a pilot program in 2012 and expanded nationally in 2013, Boots to Business utilizes SBA resource partners — including the Veterans Business Outreach Centers (VBOC), Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), Women’s Business Centers (WBC), SCORE, and SU’s IVMF — to deliver entrepreneurship education and training to transitioning service members and their dependents who are exploring or pursuing small-business ownership and self-employment.
Boots to Business is available at no charge on military installations worldwide to service members and military spouses transitioning or retiring from service, the SBA said.
WISE message
Prior to her remarks at the IVMF, Contreras-Sweet also spoke at the 13th annual WISE Symposium at the nearby Carrier Dome.
“The fact that you call the conference, WISE, is a wise move, I must say … this whole notion of women inspiring the spirit of entrepreneurship I think is just that,” Contreras-Sweet said about WISE as she opened her talk at the IVMF.
The event targets young entrepreneurs and anyone active in the business community interested in networking with “smart, savvy” women in business, according to the WISE website.
WISE is short for Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship.
“More and more women find themselves not only wanting to create their own business but in many instances, having to create their own business to provide for their families,” Contreras-Sweet added.
Her message at the WISE Symposium noted that women should also be thinking about “growing companies to scale.”
She noted the recent launch of the SBA program called InnovateHER “because we wanted women to know that they too can create the next Google, the next Microsoft … the next Uber,” said Contreras-Sweet in response to a CNYBJ inquiry at the IVMF news conference.
The SBA started “InnovateHER: 2015 Innovating for Women Business Challenge” in March. It’s a nationwide competition for entrepreneurs focusing on products and services that will benefit women and their families (See story above).
“We want women to get in the game,” she added.
The WISE Symposium featured between 125 and 130 exhibitors, speakers, and breakout session on various business topics, says Lindsay Wickham, event manager for the WISE Symposium.
Wickham also serves as events and communications manager at the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship at SU’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management.
The conference, which had been held at the Oncenter, moved to the Carrier Dome as part of SU’s One University initiative, says Wickham.
“We want to bring together community with campus, so we decided what better way than to [hold] it up here at the Carrier Dome where we can invite students, faculty, and staff and show the community what amazing entrepreneurial things are happening,” says Wickham.
The school has been hosting One University events that seek to “bring together small groups of faculty and staff from across a range of academic and administrative units to meet, talk and get to know each other a little better,” according to a Nov. 21, 2014, news release on the SU website.
