City extends Maricopa Center for Entrepreneurship, effort to create jobs

The Maricopa Center for Entrepreneurship was designed to help entrepreneurs turn ideas into profitable small businesses.

The City of Maricopa agreed to a two-year renewal agreement with the incubator Oct. 1 as part  of Mayor Christian Price’s vision of creating hometown jobs. The center at 20800 N. John  Wayne Parkway offers contacts, resources and expertise in addition to technology and workspaces.

“Our services are free to the companies that come in for help,” said new Executive Director Dan Beach. “When businesses come in asking for help, the answer is always yes. We’re always working on what else we can do to help them.”

Price said the city supports job creation and always will support an incubator program for businesses.

“Whether it’s run by a third party or by the city, it always will be a priority,” the mayor said.

Between Beach’s 25-plus years of business experience – with startups to publicly-traded companies – and the various experts available through center, there are few situations companies can’t get advice on.

“People always ask, ‘Who are you? What do you do?’ because they don’t know that we’re here,” Beach said. “Our main goal is to help people take their ideas and turn them into businesses, or help their small businesses grow and become more profitable.”

One of Beach’s main focuses when dealing with new businesses is setting a forecast, so they know where they are as opposed to where they should be – or want to be.