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eslie Duke knew he had a good product to sell. But he also knew it would take patience and persistence to market the innovation. It was a product unlikely to start flying off store shelves by itself.

Tickle Me Elmo it wasn’t.

“We are in a very niche market,” says Duke, president of Ballistics Research, which had figured out a groundbreaking way to do ballistics testing on firearms without doing damage to the bullets.

What Ballistics Research needed to crack that niche market was a little luck and some low overhead. Luck would have to take care of itself, but Duke found the low-cost office space he needed at the Business Expansion Center (BEC), run by Coosa Valley Technical College in Rome. And shortly after he located his start-up at BEC last summer, members of Congress, U.S. Army firearms experts and law enforcement officials from around the country were paying call to this North Georgia city for a demonstration.

Today, Duke acknowledges that Coosa Valley Tech’s BEC was essential to getting his company off the ground.

“It really helps on numerous fronts,” he says. “Cash outlay when you’re just getting started is very important, and they give you space to grow your business at a very reasonable rate. The financial benefits, the networking benefits — there are just so many things they do for us as far as getting the word out about our products.”

The BEC, along with the Augusta-Richmond County Small Business Incubator (SBI), operated by Augusta Technical College, are two of a number of business incubators being developed at Georgia’s technical colleges. Living up to the image conjured by the word “incubator” as a warm, encouraging place to support the early growth of young businesses, these incubators are intended to foster regional economic development by giving critical, early support to entrepreneurs and small businesses through managerial and technical assistance, low office rental rates and shared access to basic office services and equipment.

But the businesses that join the incubators get more than just a break on rent. In addition to hosting seminars and market capital meetings, both Rome’s BEC and Augusta’s SBI maintain advisory boards heavily stocked with business professionals who serve as mentors. Each incubator requires regular meetings between advisory board members and clients in order to review business plans and bookkeeping and otherwise promote their tenants’ ongoing progress.

“On BCI’s board of advisors, we have about 30 business professionals — lawyers, accountants, company executives, community leaders — who advise us and our companies,” says Pete McDonald, Coosa Valley Tech VP of economic development. “If the companies are worried about taxes, for instance, they can sit down with one of these accountants free of charge and be advised.”

At the SBI in Augusta, Director Laura Geddings similarly keeps in close touch with the fledgling businesses being supported by the incubator.

“The advisory board is required,” she says. “It’s really for their benefit to let us track how well they’re doing. We provide written minutes quarterly [and] they also take advantage of any seminars or workshops we provide. And I’m always trying to link them to any funding sources I find out about.”

Attracting new business
In his role as director of the BEC, Ronnie Wallace has in just three years managed to draw a remarkably diverse slate of clients to his facility’s roster, in part by actively filling the role of “mother hen” as he nurtures young businesses. “The center is meant to be as close to a ‘safe haven’ for entrepreneurs as possible,” says Wallace. “We provide low-cost office space — below market pricing — as well as professional assistance.”

While the BEC is relatively small — a 38,000-sq.-ft. converted furniture factory in a depressed Rome neighborhood — it numbers among its eight current clients a state-of-the-art biometrics laboratory (installed for Beocarta, a Scotland-based biotech firm) and a company that manufactures portable cooling towers for businesses throughout North America.

“The incubator has helped us bring in new jobs that we haven’t seen in this area before,” says Pete McDonald. “The biotech company, for example, is the only one I’m aware of in northwest Georgia. As with most incubators, our lease fees are about 60 percent of what comparable market value properties would be. [Clients] pay a single fee each month that covers utilities, phone lines, computer access, heat and air.”

The center, which McDonald credits with directly creating more than 20 jobs so far, was also of great value in recruiting two new major manufacturers to the area. Pirelli Tires and Suzuki, which recently opened an ATV plant in Rome, both used BEC for temporary site headquarters while their own facilities were under construction. “We housed Pirelli for a year while they built their facility; Suzuki was here for more than a year,” says McDonald. “We provided desks and Internet access, really free of charge. All they paid for were their long-distance fees.”

Bruce McClearen of Beocarta has nothing but praise for the BEC. Noting that his company, which does very specialized work for chemical and pharmaceutical companies, has very specialized needs, McClearen says the center went to great lengths, including installing necessary infrastructure, to accommodate requisite laboratory and storage equipment. “Everyone here has just been really great to work with,” he says. Even the location is an asset. “We needed to be near major universities and laboratories [in Atlanta],” he notes, but “at the same time, this is a very competitive business. We needed to be a bit out of the way, too.”

Ninety-five percent and growing
At 95 percent capacity, Augusta Technical College’s SBI is a definite success story. Opened near the college campus in November 1999, SBI was envisioned as a high-tech incubator, says Director Laura Geddings. However, the 2000 recession and, moreover, the September 11 attacks threw an unforeseen obstacle in the new incubator’s path. “An obvious result was that a lot of the IT companies just left,” she says. “After 9/11, we had three that basically moved back home. They saw a real fall in sales over the Internet for Web design and online sales. The high-tech industries were really hit hard. Since then, however, just by word of mouth and other clients’ customers coming in, we’re really moving. I only have two small offices open.”

“Generally, the areas we wanted to cultivate were oriented to high-tech organizations, and we’re trying to keep it at that,” notes Ted Duzenski, Augusta Tech VP of economic development. “But we’ve really gone beyond the technology area to businesses that look like they’ll have an economic impact on the area. We’re targeting minority businesses, female-operated businesses, disadvantaged businesses.”

The SBI’s affiliation with and proximity to Augusta Tech benefits both institutions. “Working with the college, our mission is to ‘cross-pollinate’ with students,” says Geddings. “I utilize a work-study student for my receptionist, and a couple of our clients have used students as interns. I had one client who utilized an entire class. He was developing a thermostatic control device and needed a marketing plan. So he took the device up to one of the electronics classes and the professor used that for a project throughout the quarter. The students researched it, came up with a marketing plan and presented it to the client. It helped the client and provided the students with a real-life, hands-on learning opportunity.”

Including the SBI’s roster of 10 current clients, some 20 companies have so far worked with the incubator and almost all have been success stories, says Geddings. “Only one is not in business any more,” she says. “Even the ones that moved back home are still in business; one, a Web design company, has graduated and moved into its own location.”

Like most incubators, the SBI tries to get its clients up, running and “out of the nest” in about three years. “Normally, that’s what we try for,” says Geddings. “However, if there’s not a waiting list, they can stay a fourth year. But hopefully, at that point, they’ve learned enough and saved enough money that they can survive out there on their own.”

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