Okay, we'll call this uh council meeting to order.

Everybody, please stand with me and go to the flag in the United States of America.

One nation under God, indivisible with justice for all.

Okay, roll call.

Yeah, all uh council members are present except for council members who is absent and excuse me.

Uh approval of minutes, approval of the minutes of regular council meeting for June 2nd, 2026.

So I see any objections.

The meeting minutes will stand.

We have public appearance tonight.

We have uh the Alaska's Women's Business Center update.

So please come to the front.

Make sure your mic is on there.

There you go.

Okay, how's my volume?

I talk loudly.

Agreed.

Well, good evening.

Um I may have Martha hang out nearby with me because I'm gonna be talking about this really incredible partnership that's three years long.

And um I will try to keep this brief.

So uh good evening, Mayor, council members, and city staff, and lovely business owners.

Uh, for those that I haven't met, I'm Carrie Jean Shepard, and I'm the director of the Alaska Women's Business Center at Business Impact Northwest.

Business Impact Northwest is an SBA nonprofit partner that serves Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.

And we're also a certified community development financial institution, which is called the CDFI, which means we provide lending and business support to entrepreneurs who may not qualify for traditional bank loans.

And basically any business under three years old does not qualify for traditional bank loans.

I was born and raised here in Valdez, so it's especially meaningful to return in this role and support the entrepreneurs investing in the future of this community.

Tonight I'll share the results of the city's investment, what we're seeing in the business community, and where we see future opportunities.

So our goal tonight is really simple to report on the partnership outcomes, share business community observations, and discuss how we can continue strengthening Valdez's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

So who we serve, um, first, it's a bit of a misnomer.

The Alaska Women's Business Center serves more than just women.

25% of our clients are men, and in fact, I'm working with uh several male-owned businesses in the community here.

Um there's an SBA policy called No Closed Doors, so everybody's eligible.

But as you'll see in 2025, we got smart and started marketing more as business impact northwest so that everybody felt like they could come and get served.

Um in terms of who we work with, uh in Valve's, it's primarily businesses across tourism, retail, trades, professional services, child care, food, maritime the arts, and emerging entrepreneurship.

And I should say this year, a lot more uh small craft manufacturing, like CDC or CNC routers and 3D printing.

These businesses are an important part of Valdeza's economic base.

They create jobs, provide needed services, and help keep more economic activity local.

And this partnership has grown in stages.

So in 2023, um, after I joined the uh Valve's or sorry, the Valve's the Alaska Women's Business Center, we reached out to the entire state and just said, who would like to work with us?

And Valdez was one of the first to say yes.

Um so in 2023, the focus was engagement, listening outreach workshops, and introducing the Alaska Women's Business Center services to Valve's and the economic development department um stepped right up, helping us get the word out and engaging both existing businesses but also those that are have not registered their businesses and maybe have a side hustle or a hobby business.

In 2024, the focus was community, expanding workshops, business mixers, peer connections, and launching this uh meetup group that meets monthly called the businesswoman at Valdeze.

Um you can see right there, this is when Valdez made a 10,000 dollar partnership contribution, in part because of some of the SBA cuts where you may have noticed SBDC, the small business development center cut, all travel across the state.

So only those in near centers like uh Wasilla, Juno, Fairbanks, and Anchorage were getting services in person.

In 2025, this focus shifted to growth, capital access, leadership development, statewide visibility for local businesses, and major events like the Small Business Conference and Fall Business Builder Workshops.

In 2026, our focus has been sustainability and future readiness.

We're also focused on profitability, workforce pathways, business succession, in other words, who's going to take over your business when you're ready to retire, digital fluency, and helping younger entrepreneurs from ideas into viable businesses.

So why small businesses matter?

Many of you in the room are small businesses, but I'm saying this just for the record.

Small businesses matter because they create jobs, provide local ownership, support year-round services, and contribute to your community resilience.

And in a community like Valdez, entrepreneurship is also about quality of life.

These businesses help make Valdez a place where people can build careers, raise family, and stay long term.

But I would say that they're also what gives our younger generations hope, hope that there is a future for them here, and that they can create this town to be a place that they want to stay and raise their own families.

So the city's investment allows Valdez to receive dedicated support rather than only virtual statewide services.

It supports quarterly visits, year-round follow-up, direct outreach, customized programming, and access to a proven entrepreneurship pathway.

Prior to this partnership, what support looked like for over two decades was occasionally an SBA program would come to town, do a workshop, lucky to have five people in the room.

And then, although they would offer ongoing coaching, there wasn't continual follow-up.

Long-term relationships were not really being built, and there was a lot of turnover at the SBDC, which means year to year you may have a very different advisor who needs to learn your business all over again.

At the end of the day, Valdez businesses were trying to figure it out on their own.

So what this changed was what the pathway looks like.

It includes startup education, business advising, and then expert sessions in areas like legal, HR, finance, marketing, and management, which are typically really expensive if you've ever had to pay for those services out of pocket, and also access to capital, in other words, lending and lines of credit through business impacts lending programs.