Development group faces funding issues

Frontiersman

MAT-SU — A local economic development group has stalled, but says it’s not out of the race to fulfill its mission of helping small businesses flourish in the Mat-Su Valley.

Mat-Su Economic Enterprise (MEE) was created last year with $50,000 seed money from the Mat-Su Borough and City of Wasilla to help local businesses and entrepreneurs create more sustainable businesses in the Valley.

Although MEE is off to a slow start, it plans to continue, said Marty Metiva, who chairs the organization.

MEE began last year when the Borough and Wasilla each pledged $25,000, Metiva said. With some of the start-up money, the group signed a contract with the Sirolli Institute, an organization that specializes in helping develop groups like MEE.

Metiva said MEE entered a 30-month, $150,000 contract with the institute and training began last year. After the initial training and creation of MEE, progress has slowed but not ended. MEE has since fallen behind on its payments to Sirolli and further training is on hold until MEE raises more money.

“We are helping businesses,” Metiva said. “And we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.”

Metiva said MEE is exploring grants and other sources of funding. He is also pursuing some possible funding from Conoco Phillips.

For its part of the contract, Sirolli is teaching MEE personnel its techniques of enterprise facilitation. In a nutshell, enterprise facilitation is a management approach that focuses on networking and relies on community support.

“It’s the community working with the community to help entrepreneurs and small businesses get started,” he said.

Casey Reynolds, economic development planner for Wasilla, said Mat-Su Economic Enterprise is a helpful addition to the Valley.

“Any time you can support entrepreneur growth it really helps because they have ownership in the community,” Reynolds said.

As the Valley grows, Reynolds said it needs to develop into a more self-sustaining community with enough diverse business to retain the local workforce. Currently, about 30 percent of the Valley’s workforce commutes to Anchorage. With organizations like MEE, creating something more than a bedroom community is easier to imagine.

“This could be a healthy component of making that transformation,” he said.

Although Mat-Su Economic Enterprise is behind on payments for its $150,000 contract, Metiva said the institute understands and training will resume when more money is available. Ultimately, the goal is for MEE representatives to use the training received from Sirolli to accomplish local economic development goals.

Repeated attempts to reach officials at the Canada-based Sirolli Institute for comment on this story were unsuccessful.

Contact Chris Gillow at chris.gillow@frontiers-man.com or 352-2284.