Published May 2005

NW Women’s Business Center
expands presence

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

The Northwest Women’s Business Center has a new home — make that two new homes — to better aid entrepreneurs in its six-county service area.

In April, the 4-year-old center relocated its offices from space shared with the Snohomish County Economic Development Council in Everett to locations in south and north Snohomish County.

Director Tiffany McVeety heads up the center’s regional headquarters at the Edmonds Conference Center, while Assistant Director Carolyn Eslick runs the center’s administrative operations from the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce office.

The goal of the move is to offer better access to entrepreneurs operating within the center’s region, which includes Island, Kitsap, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties, McVeety said.

“The ferry drops people off at Edmonds, and we have people who get right off the ferry and come right to our networking events (at the Edmonds Conference Center),” she said, while the move into the Marysville area will better serve entrepreneurs to the north.

“And this allows Carol to focus northward and on the more rural Snohomish County area,” McVeety added.

For those who can’t make it to these two offices, the center offers counseling services at various subcenters throughout the region, including locations in Bremerton, Everett, Monroe, Sultan, Mount Vernon, Friday Harbor and Bellingham.

“Usually, I will partner with chambers of commerce or Small Business Development Centers or other organizations. They’ll typically call me and say, ‘We’d really like a counselor here,’” McVeety said of subcenter partners, who schedule counseling appointments and provide her with office space.

But knowing whom to call used to present a quandary for entrepreneurs located in subcenter areas, McVeety said. That all changed in April, when the Northwest WBC began using a new centralized phone system.

“People will just need to call one telephone number, our current telephone number,” she said. “If they want counseling, they’ll press a button, and then they’ll be able to (select) an area where they want counseling in, and it will forward directly to that ... subcenter.”

Cost for counseling by center staff is free for Northwest WBC members and can range from $25 to $150 per hour, depending on a client’s need, for nonmembers.

Along with counseling, the Northwest WBC also has access to financial aid, said McVeety, whose center is a public-private partnership between Seattle-based Community Capital Development and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

For example, the SBA recently gave Community Capital Development $500,000 in Microloan funding, which can finance up to $35,000 per loan request, McVeety said.

“If a business is really needing money to buy a piece of equipment, especially those between $20,000 to $25,000 or less, I can process the loan in a couple of weeks,” she said.

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