Breaking Down Barriers

Guest: Clair Whitmer, Deputy Director, California Office of the Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA)

In this episode, David sits down with Clair Whitmer, Deputy Director of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate, to unpack SCALE, the state's network connecting small business support providers funded through SSBCI federal dollars and state appropriations. Clair came to public service through a Fuse Corp executive fellowship, landing in the City of Fresno's economic development office just as the pandemic hit, and has spent the years since building what she calls one of the signature accomplishments of the Newsom administration.

Clair and David dig into how CalOSBA turned a fragmented, siloed network of over 160 providers into a true ecosystem: one where competitors for the same funding learned to make warm handoffs instead of guarding their turf. They talk candidly about the "carrot and stick" of using both funding and convening power, the shift to requiring client-level (not just aggregate) data, and why that shift was a bigger mind-shift than anyone anticipated. Clair also shares why she believes a product management mindset, not just program administration, is the missing skill set in most government ecosystem-building efforts.

The conversation ranges from the coming "silver tsunami" of retiring small business owners and the opportunity in succession planning and employee ownership, to Gen Z choosing entrepreneurship over homeownership, to the $3.1 billion in capital and $4 billion in equity unlocked through the program to date. Clair closes with a story from Humboldt County that still grounds her work today.

In this episode:

• What SCALE stands for and why CalOSBA built a consumer-facing brand instead of leading with program acronyms
• The unified data model: moving providers from aggregate self-reporting to client-level data
• How CalOSBA used both funding and convening power to get 160+ competing providers to cooperate
• The annual tension of spreading limited dollars across more providers vs. fewer, better-funded ones
• The coming wave of retiring small business owners and the case for succession planning and employee ownership
• Why Gen Z is choosing entrepreneurship over homeownership as a path to wealth
• The migration to Catalyzer and what's next for SCALE under a new governor
• Clair's advice for emerging ecosystem builders: hire for product management skills, not just program administration
• A story from Humboldt County that Clair calls her "North Star"

Links:

• SCALE / CalOSBA: https://calosba.ca.gov/
• Connect with Clair Whitmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairwhit/

In this episode of Breaking Down Barriers, McKenzie sits down with Becky McCray to unpack why the old lines between "business" and "community project" don't hold up anymore, especially in rural America. Becky has spent nearly two decades at the intersection of entrepreneurship and small-town community building, and she brings that experience to life through real examples: an engineer wrestling with whether a timber festival makes him a "greedy capitalist" or a "community do-gooder," a divided building in Colfax, WA that became home to microbusinesses, and a beautification project in Freedom, Oklahoma (population under 200) that's using duct tape and cardboard mockups to let residents co-design their own downtown before a single dollar is spent.

Becky and McKenzie talk about:

• Why the for-profit/nonprofit divide is a legal classification, not a reflection of how communities actually think about value
• How Freedom, Oklahoma is blending history, public space, and economic development into one active-living and beautification project
• The "idea-friendly method": gather your crowd, build connections, take small steps
• Why bigger towns tend toward silos and how smaller towns can model a better way
• Why standardized entrepreneurship curriculums fail, and what happens when programs start with intake instead of a lecture outline
• The new cohort model Becky and Deb Brown (SaveYour.Town) are building with Andrew Button of Mashup Lab, bringing entrepreneurial and community-minded participants into the same room

Becky's closing advice: Start looking around your own community. The blending of business and community thinking is already happening. You just have to go find it and start the conversation.

Connect with Becky:

• SaveYour.Town
• LinkedIn: Becky McCray
• BeckyMcCray.com
• Small Biz Survival newsletter
• 2026 Rural Challenges Survey

In this episode of Breaking Down Barriers, David sits down with Marci Goodwin, co-founder of SmartStart Business Development and creator of the SmartStart Navigator, to talk about the "hidden entrepreneurs" quietly reshaping small-town economies across the country.

Marci shares how a SaaS platform originally built for high-growth tech startups found its real audience in microbusinesses—the makers, side-hustlers, and mom-and-pop owners who make up the vast majority of U.S. businesses but rarely walk through the doors of an SBDC or chamber of commerce. She and David dig into why these owner-operated businesses (fewer than 10 employees, many with just one) are the true engine of local economic activity, especially as rural Main Streets lose their traditional employer businesses.

The conversation covers a lot of ground: how SmartStart's bootstrapped, community-embedded model works; the baby-steps approach to getting microbusinesses "bankable"; real stories of downtown revitalization sparked by a single entrepreneur pulling others up behind her; and why traditional KPIs like jobs created and tax revenue don't capture the real impact of this work. Marci introduces the concept of KIIs—Key Impact Indicators—as a better way to measure success before the traditional metrics ever show up.

In this episode:

• Why so many U.S. businesses are microbusinesses, and why that matters
• How SmartStart Navigator helps communities find entrepreneurs who don't yet see themselves that way
• The customer-development-first approach to getting a business "bank ready"
• Two Main Street revival stories—from a single-storefront herbalist to a six-vendor maker community
• Why traditional KPIs fail microbusinesses, and what Key Impact Indicators (KIIs) look like instead
• Advice for the next generation of economic development practitioners: get out from behind the desk

Connect with Marci Goodwin:

• LinkedIn: Marci Goodwin
• SmartStart Business Development
• SmartStartNavigator.com

Guest: Deb Brown, rural economic development specialist and co-founder of SaveYour.Town Host: McKenzie Dial-Fritscher, SVP of People, Economic Impact Catalyst

Episode Summary Deb Brown has spent over a decade working with rural communities across the country through keynotes, workshops, and site visits. As a former chamber director in a town of 7,800 in Iowa, she led an empty buildings tour that helped fill vacant downtown buildings in 18 months, and she's since built that experience into SaveYour.Town, a workbook, and network built around the "idea-friendly method." In this conversation, McKenzie and Deb talk about what actually moves the needle in small towns. Not big grants or outside investment, but small, community-owned steps that build trust, ownership, and momentum.

In this episode:

• What "small town" really means, and why Deb lets communities self-identify rather than using population cutoffs
• The five barriers that keep resurfacing across a decade of rural community surveys
• The idea-friendly method: why gathering a willing crowd beats forming a committee
• Reframing setbacks as data instead of failure, with real examples from the field
• Practical ways to build trust with reluctant or resistant building owners
• Why storytelling and self-reliance are the through-line of every successful small-town project
• The empty buildings tour that turned around a town: how it started and what it produced
• AI as a capacity tool for overstretched rural leaders, not another thing to fear

Resources Mentioned:

• SaveYour.Town free weekly newsletter
• Deb's speaker site and workbook

David Oliver sits down with Rhonda Ladig, Director of Entrepreneurship at the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI), to challenge common assumptions about rural innovation. Rhonda shares how CORI's 43 member communities and 101+ tech startups span healthcare, aerospace, biotech, cybersecurity, and outdoor recreation with over 10% of ventures already AI-driven. The conversation digs into how CORI measures real impact beyond "butts in seats," how its new Rural Entrepreneurship Index is helping tell a data-backed story to funders, and why only 1% of venture capital reaches rural communities despite 12% of entrepreneurial activity happening there.

What you'll learn:

• Why "if you've met one rural community, you've met one rural community" and why that matters for how we design support
• The three pillars of CORI's work: community experience, tech workforce development, and entrepreneurship/direct startup support
• How CORI's "train the trainer" model builds lasting capacity instead of dependency
• Moving from outputs to outcomes: lessons from a 6-year longitudinal study in Emporia, Kansas
• What the Rural Entrepreneurship Index measures and why business-creation data tells a different story in rural counties
• The capital gap: 1% of VC vs. 12% of entrepreneurial activity in rural America
• Rhonda's "magic wand" wish for funders, ESOs, and policymakers working in rural communities

Resources & Links:

• Center on Rural Innovation
• Rural Entrepreneurship Index
• Connect with Rhonda Ladig on LinkedIn

Oklahoma Farm Bureau, the state's largest generalist farm and ranch organization, with a presence in all 77 counties, runs one of the most surprising and effective rural entrepreneurship programs in the country. What started with census data showing rural population decline turned into a state-designated rural business accelerator, a $5.75M rural venture fund, and a statewide technical assistance network. In this conversation, the team shares the origin story, the program structure, the wins, and the hard-won lessons about communicating economic development work to people who've never heard the jargon and don't need to.

Topics Covered

• The origin story: how census data, a legislative RFP, and a visionary board turned Farm Bureau into a rural accelerator operator
• Results to date: 42 startups, 36 rural communities, 129 jobs created, $20M+ raised, a 95% post-graduate survival rate
• Oklahoma Grassroots Rural and Ag Business Accelerators: a six-month, hybrid (25% in-person) program built for people with farms, families, and full-time jobs
• SSBCI technical assistance: one-on-one coaching split across western (Sadie) and eastern (Garrett) Oklahoma
• Curriculum work with Oklahoma FFA to support student-run "legacy businesses" and build an agribusiness pathway for the next generation
• Launch Rural OK: the resource hub, interactive map, statewide conferences, and the "resource round robin" format that replaced traditional trade-show booths
• How the team finds entrepreneurs: not by going direct to founders, but by building relationships with the first people they call for help (chambers, colleges, legislators, lenders)
• The venture fund deep dive: how OKFB partnered with Generation Food Rural Partners Fund to become the first fund in USDA history permitted to operate this way, investing only in Oklahoma while giving LPs a return across a $48M national fund
• A founder story: how a health-tech air filtration startup pivoted into food processing through a single introduction made during the accelerator's boot camp stage
• Why "we're on your team for the long haul" and what follow-on support looks like after the six-month program ends
• The real barrier in rural economic development: not lack of resources, but communication and trust, and why repeating your story, over and over, in plain language, is the job
• How other states can get started: walk into your local Farm Bureau office, or call Oklahoma Farm Bureau directly

Resources:

• Connect with Amarie
• Launch Rural OK

In this landmark episode of Breaking Down Barriers, EIC CEO David Ponraj sits down with one of the most influential voices in economic development—Nathan Ohle, President & CEO of the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). With 100 years of history and a pivotal centennial celebration on the horizon, Nathan shares what's driven him across two decades in the field, where the profession is headed, and what every economic developer needs to be thinking about right now.

What we cover in this episode:

How Nathan got into economic development — From serving as trip director for Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to running three economic development boards during one of the worst recessions in state history, Nathan's path into the field was anything but planned. He shares how the crisis of Michigan's recession actually forced the kind of innovative, community-first thinking that has shaped his entire career.

System stewardship vs. transactional economic development — Nathan breaks down a concept that's generating real conversation across the field: the shift from deal-making to system connectors. Economic developers have always been natural conveners and catalyzers—but today, that means intentionally bridging workforce, housing, childcare, education, and community planning in ways the field has never formalized before.

Technology, AI, and the communities getting left behind — AI is creating extraordinary efficiency gains, but it's also moving faster than communities can keep up. Nathan speaks candidly about what IEDC is doing to equip EDOs of all sizes—from those on the cutting edge to those still catching up—and why the data center conversation is one of the most complex, community-loaded issues economic developers are navigating right now.

The federal funding landscape — With a generational wave of federal investment now giving way to significant uncertainty, Nathan identifies the programs that continue to hold bipartisan support (CDBG, EDA, USDA Rural Development) and gives practical guidance on diversifying beyond federal resources.

Advocacy as a core economic development function — IEDC has been deepening its advocacy work in Washington, and Nathan explains why the time to build relationships with congressional offices is before a crisis hits. He talks about storytelling, data, and why raising the profile of economic development in policymakers' minds is mission-critical.

IEDC's Centennial and the Annual Conference in New Orleans — 1,700–1,800 attendees. 45+ breakout sessions. A centennial celebration at Mardi Gras World. Richard Florida as a keynote. Nathan walks through what makes the Annual Conference special (and why David calls it his favorite conference of the year).

What Nathan would do differently — If he could go back, Nathan says he would have started the storytelling conversation much earlier. Because if you don't tell your story, someone else will. and it won't be the story you want told.

Resources & Links:

• IEDC Website
• IEDC Annual Conference — New Orleans
• Economic Development Research Partners (EDRP)

Breaking Down Barriers is produced by Economic Impact Catalyst (EIC). Learn more at economicimpactcatalyst.com

In this episode, EIC CEO David Ponraj, VP of Clients Molly King, and Associate Product Owner David Oliver break down what it actually takes to build a technical assistance (TA) program that serves entrepreneurs well and produces the data story your funders need to see. From intake form design to impact tracking, this is a practical, field-tested guide for economic development organizations, SBDCs, and small business program managers.

What You'll Learn:

• Designing your program structure — How to clarify whether you're delivering one-on-one coaching, cohort-based TA, or a hybrid model, and why getting this right from the start prevents burnout for coaches and abandonment by business owners
• Minimum viable intake — Why collecting the right data at intake is critical (and why it's nearly impossible to get after the fact), plus how to reduce friction with two- or three-question interest forms and range-based demographic fields
• The no-wrong-door approach — How to build a referral network so that every business owner who comes to you gets connected to the right resource, even if they don't qualify for your program
• Setting advisor expectations — How to structure coach/provider relationships, ensure clarity on hours, payment, and case logging, and build in bi-monthly feedback loops that keep advisors engaged and sharing best practices
• Getting out into the community — Why a website and newsletter aren't enough, and how to activate minority chambers, Main Street organizations, CDFIs, and community partners to reach underrepresented entrepreneurs
• Tracking what matters — Key metrics including capital accessed, jobs created or retained, revenue growth, business survival rates, session volume by advisor, and time-to-first-contact
• Handling mismatches — Practical strategies for identifying and resolving mentor/mentee misalignment before it becomes a problem, including CSAT surveys and monthly feedback forms for both parties
• How Catalyzer automates all of this — A live walkthrough of how milestone properties, intake forms, and session logging work together so advisors never have to leave a session to update economic impact data

Key Quote:

"What gets measured, gets managed—and gets told as a story." — Molly King

Try Catalyzer:

👉 catalyzerapp.com/start — set up a free account and see how it works for your community.

What separates a truly impactful cohort program from one that's just filling seats? In this episode, hosts Taylor Sherbine and David Oliver sit down with Karen Collins, Director of Programs at LAUNCH Chattanooga, to explore what it actually takes to build, run, and sustain cohort-based entrepreneurship programs that meet real community needs.

Karen brings a rare perspective: she's sat on both sides of the table as a funder, a grant writer, a participant, and now a program director. She shares candidly about Launch Chattanooga's evolution, including their bold pivot to launch the Kitchen Incubator of Chattanooga—the only freestanding kitchen incubator in Southeast Tennessee—and the board pushback they had to overcome to make it happen.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How to design a cohort that actually fits your community: why community discovery and stakeholder mapping must come before program design
• Building an application process with purpose: how to align intake questions with funder requirements and participant fit, without closing the door on anyone's entrepreneurial dream
• The "whole entrepreneur" approach: why what happens in someone's personal life affects their business, and how to build wrap-around referral systems into your program design
• Data strategy from day one: why waiting until after the cohort to think about outcomes is already too late, and how Launch Chattanooga is rebuilding their data infrastructure with Catalyzer
• Drop-out recovery and waitlist engagement: the relationship-first protocols that keep doors open and bring participants back
• Funding alignment and when to walk away: all money is not good money; how to stay mission-focused even when grant funding doesn't fit your population
• AI in cohort curriculum: an honest take on where AI tools help, and where they fall short in serving community-specific needs

Featured Guest: Karen Collins, Director of Programs, LAUNCH Chattanooga

Karen is a former executive director, federal grant writer, and city government leader who went through LAUNCH Chattanooga as an entrepreneur herself before joining the team. She brings deep expertise in data-driven service delivery, community advocacy, and cohort-based program design.

Resources Mentioned:

• LAUNCH Chattanooga
• Kitchen Incubator of Chattanooga
• Catalyzer (EIC's platform for tracking client outcomes and business coaching)
• StartSpark (national network co-founded by Hal Bowling)

In this episode of Breaking Down Barriers, host David sits down with LeSean Shaw, co-founder of Empowered AI and Actual Reality Technologies, and a Toledo, Ohio native on a mission to make artificial intelligence accessible, equitable, and community-centered.

LeSean shares the powerful "bean in a bowl of rice" lesson passed down from his great-grandmother—a metaphor that shaped his drive to create safe spaces for underserved communities in tech. A self-made entrepreneur, LeSean brings a grounded, honest perspective on what it actually takes to build something meaningful from the ground up.

In this conversation, LeSean and David explore:

• Why LeSean left a corporate path to build AI education nonprofits in his hometown
• How AI can unlock a "creative renaissance" for communities that have long had the talent but not the opportunity
• The difference between AI fluency and AI transformation, and why meeting people where they are matters more than buzzwords
• The brain drain problem facing Midwest "flyover cities" like Toledo, and how to stop losing homegrown talent to coastal cities
• How LeSean pulled off the largest AI conference in the Midwest—Great Lakes AI Week—with 2,300+ attendees, 150+ speakers, and guests from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Wendy's, and the White House
• The role of MADD Poets Society, a literary arts nonprofit, in building confidence and oratory skills in the community
• His message to the next generation: "Those who stay ready don't have to get ready."

Connect with LeSean Shaw & his work:

• Empowered AI
• Actual Reality Technologies
• Great Lakes AI Week