Monday, Dec 06, 2021 • MEDIA CONTACT : Contact
The College of Texas at Arlington will set up the UTA Neighborhood Navigator (UTAComNav) Program with a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Small Enterprise Administration to assist veteran and navy partner companies with entrepreneurship training, small enterprise technical help, mortgage preparation, entry to capital/capital readiness, company and federal contracting and networking.
UTAComNav was chosen by Syracuse College’s Institute for Veterans and Army Households (IVMF) to assist its Neighborhood Navigator Pilot Program. UTAComNav will particularly work with the IVMF in assist of the veteran neighborhood by the Veterans Enterprise Outreach Middle (VBOC). IVMF was named as certainly one of solely eight Tier 1 grantees, chosen as a part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s $100 million Neighborhood Navigator Pilot Program.
“We’re excited to be working with IVMF,” mentioned Edmund Prater, VBOC government director.
Ashten Simmons, a navy partner described by Prater as a “expert administrator,” will lead the UTAComNav program.
“We’ll broaden our efforts in reaching the underserved veteran entrepreneur neighborhood and offering them the assist and assets that our veteran small companies want,” Simmons mentioned. “As a veteran partner, I’m personally aware of the problems confronted by veterans and their households, and I’m excited to collectively additional our influence to these veteran small companies that want it essentially the most.”
Michael Haynie, Syracuse College’s vice chancellor for Strategic Initiatives & Innovation, Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship and IVMF government director, mentioned IVMF and the UTAComNav have the potential to influence hundreds of veterans and their households.
“This broadens our nationwide influence, having developed an unlimited community of alumni and companions who’re devoted to assembly the distinctive wants of veterans and military-connected households,” Haynie mentioned.
UTAComNav will draw on IVMF’s finest practices delivering cost-free entrepreneurship applications like Boots to Enterprise, Veteran Ladies Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV)—applications which have assisted greater than 75,000 contributors. In the course of the pandemic, the IVMF additionally launched two new digital entrepreneurship applications, EBV Spark and R.I.S.E. (Resilience, Innovate, Maintain, Consider), to assist veteran and navy partner entrepreneurs adapt their companies to the present working setting.
Haynie mentioned he believes the brand new pilot program provides a novel answer that gives a navigation and assist mechanism to strengthen the ecosystem, nurture entrepreneurial aspirations and maintain progress and success.
“The purpose is for military-connected shoppers to obtain environment friendly, well timed and complete entry to the companies and assets they want, the place they’re and once they want them of their entrepreneurial journey,” Haynie mentioned.
– Written in collaboration with Syracuse College