ABOUT US

History

The Microbusiness Enterprise Center (MBEC) was created in August 1990 as a small business incubator to provide resources and a facility to stimulate small business formation, growth, and survival. A business incubator’s main goal is to produce successful firms that will leave the program financially viable and freestanding.  Incubator graduates have the potential to create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, commercialize new technologies, and strengthen local and national economies. 

Since inception in 1990, the MBEC has graduated several successful companies that continue to have a strong presence in the business community.  The MBEC nurtures small business growth by providing a variety of programs, resources and services. 

Incubators vary in the way they deliver their services, in their organizational structure and in the types of clients they serve. Incubator clients are at the forefront of developing new and innovative technologies – creating products and services that improve the quality of our lives in communities around the world.

National Objective

Every activity funded by the Community Development Block Grant Program must meet one of the three national objectives that govern the CDBG Program:

• Provide benefit to low- and moderate-income persons or

• Aid in the elimination or prevention of slum/blight, or

• Meet other community development needs having a particular urgency because existing conditions pose a serious threat to the health and welfare of the community and where other financial resources are not available to meet such needs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines a microenterprise as any form of business that employs five or fewer employees, one or more of who own the enterprise.

HUD regulations for microenterprise development programs, as codified under the 2002 Federal Code of Regulations 24CFR 570.201 (o) state that municipalities can provide micro-entrepreneurs (HUD, 2002): 

• Credit, including, but not limited to, grants, loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of financial support, for the establishment, stabilization, and expansion of microenterprises; 

• Technical assistance, advice, and business support services to owners of microenterprises and persons developing microenterprises; and 

• General support, including, but not limited to, peer support programs, counseling, childcare, transportation, and other similar services, to owners of microenterprises and persons developing microenterprises.