CCP business center
gets federal funding

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

The Northeast Regional Center of the Community College of Philadelphia has received federal funding to create a small-business development center on its campus.
U.S. Reps. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-13th dist.) and Patrick Murphy (D-8th dist.) secured the $231,000 through the Financial Services Appropriations bill last month.
"It’s a smart way to make sure we have a skilled work force," Schwartz said last week.
The center will provide training and resources to locally owned small businesses and medium-size companies while offering work-force education skills in nursing, law enforcement and other areas.
"We are excited that it’s in the appropriations bill, and we are thankful to our legislators for their support," said Anthony Twyman, spokesman for the college.
"The money will be used to help us plan the small-business development center, which will enable the college to offer some additional educational training and support, especially for small businesses in the Northeast."
Twyman said the project, still in its planning stages, is part of a bigger expansion at the Northeast Regional Center and is linked with efforts to bring the Northeast services currently offered at the college’s Center for Business and Industry in Center City.
Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania also have small-business development centers on their campuses. There are about 20 such facilities statewide.
While centers at other colleges focus on starting a business, Schwartz said the facility at Community College will deal more with skills training, something that many already-established small businesses are unable to fund.
The center also connects with efforts to revitalize Northeast business corridors like Frankford and Torresdale avenues and the development along the Delaware River waterfront. Schwartz, a sophomore congresswoman, has secured more than $21 million for those undertakings.
"Of course this is part of a broader commitment to the business atmosphere," she said. "There is a lot of important, good work going on. We’re seeing the revitalization in the Northeast area…we want to work with our businesses to make sure they thrive."
The small-business development center will also include a conference center to provide short-term training opportunities and meeting space for more than 3,000 local businesses. The college also plans to collaborate with the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce to design programs.
Murphy, who is serving his first term in Congress, thinks the center will become an economic engine for Northeast Philadelphia and Lower Bucks County and help small businesses to network.
"Partnering with key businesses is important," he said.
The college also plans to expand and develop associate-degree programs for professions within the bio-medical, business and financial-services industries. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry Center for Workforce Information and Analysis identified those sectors as being in demand for employees and underserved by current educational offerings within the state.
The college will expand biology, chemistry, math and technology courses and create a health career educational pipeline to encourage students in high school partnership programs to enroll in health-related transfer programs at the campus.
In the last several months, Murphy and Schwartz have introduced and supported various federal plans to help small businesses.
They include a $4.84 billion tax-relief plan for small businesses, tax breaks to businesses hiring soldiers returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the RECOVER Act, which would require the U.S. Small Business Administration to develop response plans for disasters. ••
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com