SLC SBDC adds capacity to assist businesses damaged by pandemic

With funding from the Federal CARES Act, the Salt Lake Region Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has retained the services of an additional three highly experienced and expert business professionals. These experts will focus on providing business recovery services to Salt Lake and Summit county area small businesses that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Providing one-on-one virtual and in-person consulting in the areas of operations, finance and marketing, these professionals will help small businesses build back to their pre-COVID crisis levels and continue to grow from there. In addition, they will train businesses on how to be prepared for future crises.

“Our SBDC team has been working tirelessly since the crisis began to ensure businesses have the information they need and to help them apply for the various loans and grants that have been available,” said Jim Herrin, director of the Salt Lake SBDC. “Now our focus is on helping businesses recover. In our long experience, we know real impact occurs when SBDC advisors work one-on-one with business owners. Therefore, our best option for use of our additional resources is to increase our capacity to provide personalized assistance to more companies.

“All three new hires currently have, or have had, their own businesses. Jim Broussard and Kris Heslop, two experts in operations and finance, bring a combined 70-plus years of high-level management experience and expertise from both large and small companies from industries such as manufacturing, communications, wholesale distribution, banking and consulting. Both have also been highly successful SBDC business advisors in Texas, California and Utah. Each has consulted to many hundreds of businesses during their long careers. Emily Ashby has over 15 years of marketing experience that includes social media, public relations and college instruction. She has owned two businesses, one in which she developed, patented and sold her own product, and another in which she has helped over 200 business leaders to develop strategic and marketing plans in the private, nonprofit and public sectors. Beyond digital marketing, Emily has expertise in sales, branding, web writing, ad copy writing, networking, market research, presentation skills, photography and graphic design.”

Beth Colosimo, executive director of business development resources at the Salt Lake Community College, said, “It has been heartbreaking these past several months to see so many of our small businesses get blind-sided so destructively by this crisis. The path to recovery is ominous for these companies, so we are grateful to be able to add three more experts to our SBDC team to assist more of our crisis-damaged businesses.” 

Salt Lake and Summit County small businesses can receive no-cost Salt Lake SBDC COVID-19 business recovery and other assistance by going to ​www.UtahSBDC.org​ and registering for assistance or contacting Christine Rice at 801-957-5441 or ​christine.rice@slcc.edu​.