Killeen Daily Herald - February 27, 2004
Business-owning veterans get a break
By Jennifer M. Sims
Killeen Daily Herald
Area veterans with big plans for their small businesses just got a new resource to help them along the way.
BiGAUSTIN, an Austin-based group that offers training and loans to small businesses in Central Texas, is holding classes to help area veterans develop a business plan. The group held an information session and sign-up event at the Killeen Workforce Center Thursday evening.
The classes will help participants develop the business plan and will thoroughly cover topics such as marketing, pricing, competition, start-up costs, cash flow and tax and licensing requirements, said Jeannette Peten, president of BiGAUSTIN.
Peten compared the business plan process to creating a road map.
"By doing that, it increases your success rates," Peten told a group of about 50 people gathered at the workforce center.
The class is perfectly in line with the needs of the city, said Jack Wade, vice president of the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce.
"That's what we're all about … creating jobs," Wade said. "Through this seminar series, you're going to see more businesses created, more jobs created."
Randy Johnson, of Lampasas, was one of several people at the information session Thursday who signed up for the first class, which is scheduled to start in March.
Johnson opened a math tutoring business about a year ago with two partners. Though the business made a profit in its first year, Johnson said they still need to create a business plan to help the tutoring service grow.
"THe business plan is going to give us the working plan so we don't have to sit down and discuss every move we're going to make," Johnson said.
The 36-0hour class usually costs $900, but with the Veterans Corporation helping to foot the bill, participants only have to pay $250.
"To me it seemed like a perfect place for the program" Peten said of the decision to offer the program in Killeen.
BiGAUSTIN will hold four courses in Killeen this year, with the first in March. The group will take the first 25 people who register for each class.
BiGAUSTIN is offering the class in cooperation with the Business Resource Center, the workforce center, the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce and Central Texas College.