Globe Miami Times Connecting you to the Pulse of Globe Miami
As the summer draws to a close, the City of Globe’s relationship with the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) continues to grow and strengthen, thanks to increasing community investment and entrepreneurial training.
Thanks to a grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), RCAC returned over the summer to host a series of free workshops designed to help local business people embark on dreams of self-employment or find solutions to issues they might encounter in their existing businesses.
“RCAC has been a big part of our progress from the beginning, ” Globe Mayor Al Gameros says. “They helped us get our Economic and Community Development Department (ECD) started, and they’re a big advocate for rural communities like ours.”
The RCAC, founded in 1978, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that operates in 13 western states to provide training, technical and financial resources and advocacy so rural communities can achieve their economic goals and visions.
The relationship between Globe and RCAC began in earnest in 2018 when the City received a $45,000 grant to establish the ECD. The three-year grant, provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), provided training in community economic development, as well as technical and financial resources to lay the groundwork for future growth. RCAC also facilitated the City’s Strategic Action Plan (SAP) update for 2019-2022, and provided training for City staff to take over the process in 2020.
The initial contract helped the City embark on several local initiatives, including rehabilitating the Michaelson Building on Broad Street which will become both a downtown visitors center and a business incubator.
“The main goal has been for us to assist Globe in having a business and management plan to open the co-workspace and be able to provide a wide-ranging menu of business incubation and support services, as well as different types of space for that business to start and scale-up,” says RCAC Rural Development Specialist Aaron Reimler. “That is meant to lower the barriers to entry for new entrepreneurs, whether that’s low-cost office space, access to shared equipment, internet, all those things that you don’t think about needing when you’re going to launch a business, that can cut into your startup budget.”
According to Councilman Fernando Shipley, the RCAC helped prepare the community for economic success by getting “the movers and the shakers and the decision makers” together to lay out the vision and help create consensus for the City’s plans moving forward.
“One thing the RCAC really did, is it got the juices flowing,” Shipley says. “It became the catalyst for ideas to flow forward, and some of them took root. A lot of what’s happening around town is an offshoot of the ideas that surfaced. It’s been a really good thing for us.”
Shipley says that in addition to helping build the infrastructure of community resources, the relationship with RCAC also created an atmosphere and helped create partnerships with local organizations such as I Art Globe for the establishment of the Stairizona Trail, community mural projects and other citizen-driven initiatives.
The recent free workshops, Start, Grow, Revive Your Business, which took place from July through September, is another example of the partnership that will continue for the next three years, thanks to a Rural Business Development Grant from the U.S, Department of Agriculture.
Additionally, the re-election of Mayor Gameros and Councilmen Mike Pastor and Freddy Rios will continue the path the City has forged for the past eight years.
“Our partnership with the City of Globe has really been focused on supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” RCAC’s Reimler says. “We’re not only providing assistance, but we’re trying to build intentional networks that give business owners, especially new ones, the opportunity to get insight from others and real time feedback from other entrepreneurs who are either going through the same things or have been there before.”
Another aspect of that support is a federal grant program through the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) to help improve access to capital for entrepreneurs who might otherwise lack access to financial resources.
RCAC received $3 million that will provide direct technical support for all the rural communities it serves, with Globe-Miami being one of those fortunate regions.
“Under the grant, our primary mission is to serve the small business community by providing them with information resources and technical assistance,” says RCAC Community Economic Development Consultant Dan Dever. “Anything that an entrepreneur might need to get started, and also anything that a current small business owner might need to progress and do better.”
The workshops include training on such things as writing a business plan, maximizing return on investment and decision making, even if the decision is not to follow through with ideas that might hinder progress.
Ultimately, the relationship between Globe and the RCAC will continue because, according to Dever, economic growth takes time and Globe has demonstrated its commitment to the process.
“Globe is open to this and they’ve made it a key element of their plans for the future,” Dever says. “It can take a while, but we’re as committed to the city of Globe as they have been to working with us, and I think they’ve effectively countered any resistance in the community and there have been things on the ground in Globe that have helped us along.”
Gameros echoes that commitment and points to the rehabilitation of Broad Street, the efforts to build and repair infrastructure and cleaning up blight that have become visible signs of success throughout Globe.
“I think we must keep pushing forward and continue to support our small business owners, providing useful resources and tools to help them start or grow their business,” Gameros says. “Our community is fortunate to have access to these types of programs here locally—from the City’s Economic Development team, to the Small Business Development Center at EAC, and the revolving loan program through the Southern Gila County Economic Development Corporation, to the Globe-Miami Chamber of Commerce. Cultivating the ecosystem for economic development takes time and the City of Globe is committed.”
For more information on any of these business development programs or organizations, please contact Melissa Steele, City of Globe Economic Development Manager at (928) 200-0836 or msteele@globeaz.gov.
Journalist, writer and editor who has worked for community newspapers for more than 15 years. After four years at Davis-Monthan AFB and a few years living in Tucson, moved to California to find his fortune. He is happy to be back in Arizona, in the mountains he loves.
