Photo courtesy Gary Kuwahara

The idea for the program was developed more than two years ago when Provost Allen A. Mori, President James Lyons, and the deans presented their top priorities for potential federal funding to the University’s lobbyist, Mike Fulton. Fulton saw a real opportunity for finding funding on Capitol Hill for the program because it hit on a number of the University and area’s strengths. The proposal was drawn up so that the Institute would draw on the University’s diversity with the focus on small businesses in the South Bay as well as the area’s logistics industry thriving in the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

“What I’ve looked for in helping Dominguez Hills find funding are things that match up a national need with a local capability to solve that national need. This Institute completely embraces that idea,” says Fulton.

The most significant step came in the form of support from U.S. Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, who sits on the House Small Business Committee and co-chairs the Congressional Goods Movement Caucus. Truly, without her support, the Institute would not have received the funding as she pushed for the program throughout the budgeting process last year.

Dean James Strong got word that the earmark had been successfully approved as a part of the federal government’s $57.9-billion Fiscal Year 2006 Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill more than a year ago. Yet Strong, who will serve as the Institute’s director, still had to complete a detailed non-competitive grant request for the U.S. Small Business Administration, the agency that delivered the actual funding. Alongside Associate Dean Myron Sheu, who will also work as the Institute’s assistant director, they spent the summer developing the detailed grant request and received the actual funding in October.

Now that the money is in hand, they are quickly working to establish the center, which will benefit all of those CBAPP works to serve: students, faculty, and the business community-at-large. It will do so through a three-pronged list of priorities. The first is to develop new concentrations in entrepreneurship and small business management in both the M.B.A. and undergraduate business administration programs as well as a global logistics and supply chain management concentration in the M.B.A. program to accompany the similar concentration that already exists in the undergraduate program. The second is to provide seven research grants for faculty to conduct studies in related subjects this summer with the results expected to be made available and published next fall. The third is using that research as well as the ongoing activities within the Institute to offer resources for the business community surrounding CSUDH.

As Strong explains, it’s all interrelated. “Faculty are currently developing the research grant proposals, but one possible study might look at the barriers female- and minority-owned small businesses face, and if there are such barriers, some practical ways to rectify the situation and modify business practices based on such barriers. We can then offer this information and solutions to businesses in this area, and then we’ll fold the findings into the classes so that students benefit as well,” he says.

Strong also suggested another research topic might look to catalog and coordinate the various government and non-profit resources available to small business owners in the Los Angeles area and then assess what these organizations can do to work together more cohesively.

While almost $500,000 is certainly a significant amount of money, it is nevertheless seed money to get the Institute up and running. More funds will be needed to sustain the Institute. The first step in finding funding has been led by Millender-McDonald, with an additional $300,000 currently in the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2007. This earmark will specifically focus on building the Institute’s capabilities to offer small business expertise and guidance for veterans. In addition to the federal funding, CBAPP Advisory Board Members Roberto Orci and Michael Lang are working with the administration to develop a fundraising program for the Institute.

As Strong explains, the Institute is thus entrepreneurial in itself. “We’ve got to be entrepreneurial about how the Institute goes about its business just like a small business start-up. We’ve been fortunate enough to get some seed money thanks to the good graces of the Congresswoman and now it’s up to us to make things happen,” he says. “I’m optimistic of the response I think we’ll get, because now we can go to potential donors and show them the specifics of how their gift can help instead of ‘why don’t you help the College?’ which is much more amorphous.”

Given that it’s been a few years in the making, Strong and Sheu are itching to get the Institute up and running. In addition to the faculty research grants, which will be submitted and awarded soon, an administrative assistant will be hired shortly to oversee the Institute’s office, faculty and administrators are meeting to develop the new additions to the curriculum for the concentrations, and they are already looking for additional sources of funding to make sure the Institute not only lasts for a year or two, but becomes an established part of the entrepreneurial and global logistics fabric in the South Bay.