CEDAR CITY — Community members celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Cedar City location of the Women’s Business Center of Utah this morning.
The celebration included a presentation of the center’s annual report and refreshments catered by clients who have used services offered by the Women’s Business Center.
Crystal Rockwood of Rockwood Communications Counsel, a client of the center, told Cedar City News the organization has been helpful to her business.
“They’ve exposed me to a lot of different opportunities and resources that have been helpful,” Rockwood said. “Through some of the events that they’ve put together I’ve made new contacts. And the fun part has been the relationships, of course, but they have been very good about giving me sort of a birds-eye view of all the different resources that are in Cedar City, and not only Cedar City but St George as well.”
Carol Williams, another client of the center and owner of Dog Quatics, said the services offered by the Women’s Business Center were crucial to her first year of business.
“Honestly, I would have had to hire professionals to do everything that they’ve taught me to do coming here,” she said. “As a starting business, you don’t have a budget for any of that. … They were instrumental, I would say, in helping me get through my first year.”
Women’s Business Center Program Director Debbie Drake said she plans to carry on some events from the center’s first year, such as Grow with Google, the Women’s Business Conference and the Celebrating Women Business Owners Breakfast, and make them annual occurrences. The center also began offering its Ms. Biz training this year.
“We’re really reaching rural areas with our training. We’ve started this new program — Ms. Biz,” she said. “We had one person from Cedar City and six from outside our area. So we’re really doing that rural outreach and reaching the women business owners out there.”
Drake added that she plans to continue rural outreach and partnerships.
“We’re starting podcasts. That’s a big thing that we want to do because that’s a way that rural women can keep in touch with what we’ve got going on,” she said. “We’re going to continue to use Zoom and get our trainings out to people. And the Ms. Biz classes — we’re looking forward to building those with Moab, Monticello, Price, Kanab and Richfield have all expressed interest in doing those there.”
The Women’s Business Center is located within the Southern Utah University Business Resource Center at 510 W. 800 South in Cedar City.
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