KTRV Fox 12 BSU Helps Local Businesses
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Boise, Idaho -- College students may be the brains behind local businesses successfully navigating the economic slump.
They bring us more than just great football and Boise State is setting out to work with 200 local businesses going into the Spring semester. While the program is not new to the university, the poor economy has them more motivated than ever.
"The idea is to help businesses in the Boise area and the Treasure Valley area any way we can," said BSU Dean of Business and Economics Patrick Shannon.
It's called the Spring 2009 Economic Turnaround Initiative, a program launched through Boise State's College of Business and Economics. They're looking to link eager business students with local business owners, and create a partnership benefiting both.
"We're trying to focus it now and we're asking faculty to get more involved than before if they were used to doing one project a semester we're asking them to do more than one," said Shannon.
A choice they say is directly related to the struggling economy. Besides consultation with the staff, they also offer interns and services with their small business development center. And while it's only for a semester, they can really make a difference. The Idaho Youth Ranch worked with a team of five in the executive MBA program.
"As a team they developed their analysis of our business and very specific recommendations of what we could do including the creation of what we call e-business or e-commerce which is selling things over the Internet," said Idaho Youth Ranch CEO/President Steve Woodworth.
The plan has grossed the Youth Ranch $144,000 in book sales alone. From that they've created e-book, a way to sell donated books across the country and the world online.
"We certainly receive value for that service we can see the difference in just how we conduct business the profits that are coming in that fund our programs," said Woodworth.
If you would like to get involved in the program, they're accepting interested parties on a first come first serve basis. The program is within a school semester time frame, and you could be working with graduate, undergraduate, regular MBA, or the Executive MBA students.
Contact (208) 426-4950 or http://cobe.boisestate.edu.
