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Anchoring businesses and graduates to the region

Officially, and to a casual observer, the Enterprise Center at Plymouth is a resource and an incubator for small businesses throughout the region seeking advice and counseling, services, leased space, mentoring, and networking. In practice itis all this and more.

In the fall of 2013, computer science and technology major Alex Murphy ’14 was headed to Boston to seek internships and part-time work. This is where his family is and, as he says, there is a plethora of computer science and information technology jobs in that area. But when he learned of a software support and Web services administrator internship at the Enterprise Center at Plymouth’s anchor tenant, a real estate appraisal software company called Narrative1, this computer science and technology major jumped at the opportunity to stay in the area. While at Narrative1, Murphy connected with TotalScope Marketing, another ECP member business, and soon began interning as a Web developer for them as well.

An avid mountain biker and backcountry skier, Murphy was eager to balance his desire to find good work in his own field with a lifestyle that keeps him happy and healthy. Plus, as he says, you can’t beat the location: “Considering these internships were practically 300 yards from the center of campus, the location is second to none. I live, work, and attend university all within the same square half-mile.”

The training in Web development and user experience Murphy acquired during his internships proved beneficial both academically and professionally. “Many components of my senior project, a web-based recordkeeping system for a local homeless shelter, could not have been built without the valuable experience I gained at both Narrative1 and TotalScope Marketing,” he says. And at a time when many college graduates are struggling to find work, Murphy was able to land permanent employment before graduation as a Web developer, thanks to his academic preparation and business experience.

ECP Member Businesses: Small-Town Community with Big-City Dividends

Mark LaClair, chair of the Grafton County Economic Development Council (GCEDC) and managing partner of TotalScope Marketing, appreciates the collegiality among the businesses in the ECP. “We’re always going to each other’s offices, borrowing knowledge, and borrowing supplies,” he says. “Ideas generate between two business tenants over a cup of coffee, or problems are solved just by asking somebody else who’s trying to make their own way. The atmosphere here is a story nobody expects when they come in. We knew we were going to get the University, but what we also got was each other.”

Narrative1 COO Tim Corbitt notes that employees of his company often work with other businesses in the ECP to share resources and tackle projects that they may not have been able to do themselves. He also appreciates the way the larger community takes advantage of the ECP’s programs and resources. “We’re a more traditional client trying to build a high-tech business,” Corbitt says, “but it really impresses me the number of non-tech, non-traditional businesses that come in here for support, from the dentist’s office right in town to small farms in the area, people producing wool or making cheese; it’s just terrific to bring us all together.” Any small business in the region is welcome to attend the free or low-cost workshops and seminars organized by the GCEDC and PSU’s College of Business Administration. Recent programming includes retirement planning for small businesses, social media marketing, e-mail boot camp, and preparing balance sheets for investor scrutiny.

Hand in Hand with PSU

Although the companies that lease space in the ECP specialize in different fields, from finance to marketing to software, they share a commitment to leveraging the partnership with Plymouth State University faculty and students. The proximity is a major draw for businesses and student interns alike. Corbitt notes that “it’s onlya 40-foot-wide street, but it’s a pretty big gap unless you have something to bring people here. The programs we have between the two sides of the street close that gap nicely.” His company consults frequently with PSU College of Business Administration faculty Bob Nadeau and Terri Dautcher on ways Narrative1 can properly scale itself as it grows. Nadeau, Dautcher, and other faculty arealso crucial to Narrative1’s process of recruiting interns and part-time employees who have been trained in their degree program to work on very specific marketing, Web, or technical projects.

“The nice thing about this is that it’s not just an internship for one semester,” says Corbitt. “Every one of the students work both as an intern and as a part-time employee; typically they continue on after their internship is done and throughout the rest of their time at Plymouth State. Our objective and hope is that they will start their careers here. None of that would really be feasible without being physically here next to the campus and without the services we have as part of this incubator.”

Narrative1 has goals and growth plans that mean it will outgrow the ECP—tenants are expected to make way for other small businesses after two tofive years—but Corbitt is not worried: he believes the personal relationships his company has developed with faculty and students will sustain the partnership long after Narrative1 has left the ECP.

TotalScope’s LaClair sees in the ECP-PSU partnership a chance for students to remain in the area and make a solid living and for businesses like his to access a “set of skills, youth, and energy” that allows them to be competitive and creative. “These interns give us some depth in our capability,” he says. “They allow us to do a little more for a client than we might otherwise.” LaClair finds that most new interns have the required technical skills but need the experience of working with clients and within business project timelines. His goal is to transform some of that rawenergy and base knowledge into marketable career skills.

Life After PSU

ECP business owners are keenly aware of the aging demographic in New Hampshire, and the urgent need to attract and keep young people in the state. Creating a close-knit professional community benefits businesses and students alike, and may go a long way toward keeping educated young people in New Hampshire. “Companies like ours that continue to grow will create a new business environment in the region,” says Corbitt. “But the near-term challenge is keeping the interns here after graduation, beyond the romance of the internship and into the reality of the workforce.”

LaClair says TotalScope works to help PSU students understand that an internship can mean more than just course credit; it can mean employment in a region they have come to love. “That marketing intern who works with us for a summer realizes she could actually get a job after graduation doing marketing right here where she wants to be,” he says. “We’re trying to build our culture around young people who might want to stay in the area. We can give them a work environment that meets their balance of life goals: a good career and a great place to live.”~Emilie Coulter

Tags: accelerator Bob Nadeau business business incubator computer science and technology ECP Enterprise Center at Plymouth State University finance internship Narrative1 New Hampshire software tech Terri Dautcher TotalScope Marketing