Press Releases
ARC and AdvantageWest NC Sponsor Conference on Building Entrepreneurial Communities
WASHINGTON, August 28, 2003—The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) will hold Building Entrepreneurial Communities: Incubating Businesses in Rural America, a conference focused on entrepreneurship, business incubation, and the role of equity capital in rural economic development, September 2–4, 2003, in Asheville, North Carolina. AdvantageWest NC, western North Carolina's regional economic development agency, is the co-sponsor of the conference. Three hundred attendees are expected, representing business incubators, economic development agencies, institutions of higher learning, local and state government, and private industry.
Major goals of the conference include:
- Helping communities create new rural economic development strategies;
- Assisting communities in understanding the potential of business incubation;
- Helping business incubator managers and board members more effectively start, manage, and expand their facilities; and
- Increasing awareness of the role that equity investments can play in growing local businesses.
ARC Federal Co-Chair Anne B. Pope, Asheville Mayor Charles Worley, and AdvantageWest President and CEO Dale Carroll will make opening remarks. Featured speakers include Brian Dabson, president of the Corporation for Enterprise Development; Dinah Adkins, president and CEO of the National Business Incubation Association; Monica Doss, president of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development; John Bardo, chancellor of Western Carolina University; and Ray Moncrief, CEO of Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation.
Conference support is provided by the Development District Association of Appalachia; the National Business Incubation Association; the National Association of Regional Councils; the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce; Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge, and Rice; the National Association of Development Organizations; the North Carolina Business Incubation Association; KemperStrategy; Grant Thornton; Biltmore Farms; and the Asheville Citizen-Times.
The conference will be held at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville.
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