Strickland: Small businesses crucial to recovery

Strickland visited the Muskingum County Business Incubator in Zanesville to talk with those who are benefiting from its services and speak about jobs.

"I've talked with Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) in Washington and feel confident that he will get passed a bill that extends for another year unemployment benefits," Strickland said. "People needing those benefits have worked hard and not done anything wrong. They've done everything right."

Strickland said one of the most important issues encompassing a stronger economy and job market is education.

"We have to make education more affordable," Strickland said. "We're doing more in Ohio to hold the costs down of higher education than any other state."

Strickland said incubators such as the one in Zanesville are important to job growth because they enable smaller businesses to receive the help they need to get started.

"We need it all," Strickland said. "Small business and large businesses. While we need companies that bring hundreds of jobs, we also need those companies that bring four or five jobs."

Strickland said he's hoping that the federal government will help small businesses by giving them access to loans they are unable to receive today.

"While I was in the capital last weekend, I told everyone my concern that money is not being made available to these businesses," Strickland said. "Small businesses which once had access to a line of credit for half a million dollars now are cut back to $5,000. The credit needs to be more accessible, and I believe there is a growing awareness in Washington of the problem."

Strickland said he has also spoken to several CEOs of large banks in the area about putting more resources into the community.

"They need to have greater flexibility," Strickland said. "I'm encouraged by the couple of meetings I've had that Ohio, along with Indiana and Arizona, will be able to do this."

The pendulum swung way too far to one side, Strickland said, when loans were being made too freely and too easily several years ago, but now the pendulum has swung to far to the other side, "choking our economy."

"That's the single biggest hindrance to our economic recovery," Strickland said.

While Strickland was touring the incubator facility in Zanesville, several small-business owners were on hand to show him how successfully the facility helped them grow.

Kyle McPeak, owner of TicketCrush.com, said since coming to the facility in 2008, he has been able to expand his company to four employees. It is now a money-making enterprise with $900,000 in revenue this past year, he said.

"I hope to see $1.5 million in 2010," McPeak told Strickland. "I'm looking to expand into the Columbus area and hire two more employees. The incubator has provided unlimited counseling such as how to hire employees, making a business plan and giving me the space that would have cost me money I didn't have at the time."

Another satisfied entrepreneur, Susan Hoskinson, has Designs Buy You, which enables brides to be to design their own wedding bouquets.

"If they don't have a solution to your problem here, they find it," Hoskinson told Strickland. "I had this idea a year ago and never thought I'd pull it off. But everyone here at the incubator has been so instrumental and helping me in so many areas that I'm on my way with it."

Carol Humphreys, executive director of the incubator, said the facility has two in-house clients and has serviced 30 clients.

"It's important that the governor's leadership understands the small business in the area," Humphreys said. "It's important he see this himself because sometimes we who live in the Appalachia area are looked at as unsophisticated. We're not and these businesses growing are proof of that."