A Russian business developer picked up an encouraging piece of advice from a Leflore County technology training center Monday.
Robert Saakyan of Amur State University in Blagoveshchensk, Russia, visited the TEAM Technology Training Center, where a motto printed on a plaque caught his eye: "Success is measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed."
He gave the saying a big thumbs up.
"I want to learn even more things and see more, even small things like that plaque on the wall," he said through an interpreter. "That statement is already teaching me a lot, and I want to take it back to my colleagues back home."
The private, for-profit TEAM Center is a small-business success story, according to Robert Moore, president of the Board of Supervisors. "It's one of the most successful private training programs in this area," he told Saakyan.
It's also an example of what Moore hopes the Leflore County Business & Manufacturing Development Center is going to turn out.
The county is building the business incubator across from Mississippi Valley State University, and Saakyan is director of another one that has just begun providing the same kind of start-up support for small businesses across the globe. It's called the Russian-American Business and Innovative Development Center.
He and Moore are exchanging notes on how each initiative is coming along, especially in the areas where they differ. While the two incubators are working toward similar goals - to nurture fledgling businesses - the county's is community sponsored and the one in Russia is university run.
The exchange is part of an ongoing collaboration between Amur State and the Mississippi Consortium for International Development.
Last month, Moore made his second trip to Russia in a year to learn more about how universities can contribute to economic development. This week, Saakyan went on a two-day tour of some of the county's business and industrial sites to see what role the private sector can play in small-business creation.
"His primary purpose here is to see how the whole incubator system works and how we interface with small businesses and how we help small businesses get established," Moore said.
The Russian incubator is working with two businesses right now, a furniture company and a construction outfit. Saakyan said the center still has a little learning to do.
"It's too early to talk about how far in the development process we are," he said. "The main goal at the moment is to survive and then worry about growth and expansion later.
The TEAM Center was once at that stage. Owner Linda Thompson explained to Saakyan her struggle to make a small business successful. Thompson, who was named entrepreneur of the year by the Delta Minority Business Association, started the business in 1998.
The center has been successful, Thompson said, because she found a niche - educational and work-force training in technology. The center now hosts professional development sessions and a kindergarten though 12th grade computer camp in the summer. It is currently designing the 4th Judicial District's Web site.
Saakyan was especially interested in whether the business was expanding or just existing. Thompson said her company was continuing to grow, especially when times are tough economically.
"In the poor economy we're experiencing, I have found that the need for my services still is there, and it's still growing," she said.
Saakyan continued his visit today with a tour of John-Richard and other areas in the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Park.
