Small business gathering held

ALBANY — The Dougherty County Small Business Program reached out to vendors and administrators Thursday with the goal of helping small business owners and operators network and find work.

Program Manager Pinky Modeste says that 34 businesses were represented Thursday and a variety of officials from agencies, entities and authorities ranging from the city of Albany to Darton College and Albany State were on hand.

“Our goal is to help small business get business,” Modeste said. “And these type of networking, meet-and-greet events can facilitate that.”

The Small Business Program is a sheltered market program that allows businesses who go through the certification process to have better access to the county’s bidding process.

There were 47 different participants in Thursday’s events, including established businesses and those who were simply interested in getting their businesses off the ground.

With the jobless rate for Metro Albany at 11 percent, Modeste said that many employees coping with being laid off are turning to entrepreneurship as a way to start over, but like everything else, the cost of starting one’s business has risen.

“When I first started here 10 years ago, the average cost to start a business was $14,000. A professor from Darton told me today that number now is closer to $24,000,” Modeste explained.