Bacon County is states newest designated Entrepreneur Friendly community
ATLANTA, March 27, 2006 – Bacon County has joined the state's ranks of 'Entrepreneur Friendly' communities, an official designation indicating the community is developing an environment conducive to small business and entrepreneurs. South Georgia's Bacon County is the 16th community in the state to earn 'Entrepreneur Friendly' status from the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD)'s Entrepreneur and Small Business Office. 'Encouraging and supporting our homegrown businesses and entrepreneurs will help create quality jobs for Georgians,' said Governor Sonny Perdue. 'By helping local communities support the growth of small business, we ensure prosperity and opportunity throughout the state.' An entrepreneur-friendly community must complete a program instituting guidelines and strategies that build a local environment and culture to support entrepreneur and small business development. Bacon County also completed a two-day assessment by a review team that identified strategies to implement entrepreneur and small business development programs. Additionally, county leaders asked local entrepreneurs and small business owners to evaluate Bacon County's present environment for small businesses. John Tanner, director of the Bacon-Alma Development Authority, stated: 'A lot of people in our community have ideas about starting a business, but don't know where to begin. Going through the E-Friendly process has shown our committee and community the many valuable resources available to assist, whether someone wants to start a business or an existing business needs support to grow. Since we began this process in June 2005, our city has issued 12 licenses to new business, and 100 percent of those are small business.' 'Bacon County has taken a proactive approach to sustaining its small businesses,' added Chris Clark, chairman of the Georgia Entrepreneur and Small Business Coordinating Network and GDEcD's deputy commissioner of Global Commerce. 'We congratulate the community for taking the steps necessary to ensure its small businesses will thrive and thus play an active part in Bacon's strategy for local business development.' The Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) is the state's sales and marketing arm, the lead agency for attracting new business investment, encouraging the expansion of existing industry and small businesses, locating new markets for Georgia products, attracting tourists to Georgia, and promoting the state as a location for film, video and music projects, as well as planning and mobilizing state resources for economic development. For more information, visit www.georgia.org.