Local Entrepreneurs Graduate: Business Planning Course in Rutland

I recently took a 10-week Business Planning course that was sponsored by the Rutland Economic Development Corp. (REDC) and CWE Vermont (Center for Women & Enterprise), based in Burlington.  The course was open to Rutland area residents who wanted help developing their Business Plan for their existing business or new startup idea.  CWE Vermont also welcomed men entrepreneurs like myself to attend course (Thanks!).

The course was held at REDC in downtown Rutland.  The “local instructor” was Hannah Abrams of Business Coach VT, based in Killington.  Hannah was a great instructor and helped us toward our goal of developing our business plans!  For one class session, Gwen Pokalo, Director of CWE Vermont taught our class about the important “financial” topic.  CWE Vermont offers many business related workshops at their Burlington location.  In this case, this course was a “community” course offered in another region of Vermont.

Our class had about 15 students who developed their own business plan.  We had a graduation event at CCV-Rutland on April 19, where we presented our “elevator pitch” and each spoke with several “mentor volunteers” from the Rutland region.  The students are now in the process of working with their own “mentor volunteer” for six sessions, to help us refine our business plans, and encourage us to “get started” implementing our plans.

Thanks again to REDC (Lyle Jepson, Tyler Richardson and Erin Anderson), CWE Vermont (Gwen Pokalo and Alisha Thomson) and Hannah Abrams (Business Coach VT).  I appreciate all of your help in supporting and presenting this course to Rutland Region entrepreneurs.  Thanks also to the Mentor Volunteers who are now working with students.  I also enjoyed meeting the other students in the course.

Keep checking the CWE Vermont website for their workshops, especially the “community” courses in other regions of Vermont, like the recent Business Planning course in Rutland.