Kingsport wins small business award

[Update Nov 3, 2009, 3PM Eastern: Ugh. CNN Money made an error. Apparently this has happened before, and the community took a proactive approach.]


[Update Oct 14, 2009: A growth rate of almost 44 percent over four years seems a little high, even for a “most improved” award. The methodology of the numbers deserve a second look to confirm, which I’ll do when I return from my business trip to San Francisco and London. Still, congratulations to Kingsport for getting national recognition of the City and the Chamber's joint program!]





Kingsport, TN, my adopted home town since late 2002, is number 1! The new CNN Money small business poll ranks Kingsport first—by a long shot—in the Fastest Small Business Growth category, which measures growth from 2004–2007.

The national recognition for Kingsport is especially exciting for me, personally, because I worked with the Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce from 2004 to 2006 to create and implement a business plan for the Kingsport Office of Small Business Development and Entrepreneurship (KOSBE).

The Chamber sought my participation partially for my work with tech startups and small business incubation and partially for my work in technology transfer and assisting large businesses looking to provide additional benefits for employees being downsized. (The KOSBE plan was funded both by the City of Kingsport and a local Fortune 500 company in the process of offering early retirement lump sums to a number of executives and senior managers.)

In June 2004, when we completed the initial business plan, the Chamber's CEO asked me to become a Chamber employee to implement it. Instead, we agreed on a twelve-month contract to launch the program and find a permanent successor to run it.

The KOSBE program experienced significant growth over the initial 20 months (I extended my contract to 20 months at the request of the CEO, who was called up for a year in Fallujah). In mid 2006, we found a successor, Aundrea Wilcox, who has continued to grow the program, and I went on to help launch the MountainSouth World Trade Center (the first non-metropolitan WTC).

The KOSBE program has been a great success, and I’m glad to have been a part of it. Is Kingsport the best place in the country to start a business? I would say “yes!” It’s great to see the city get the recognition it deserves, and I can attest to the quality of Kingsport as a place to run a small business, which I've done now for almost 8 years.