By Mary Alice Murphy

The Small Business Development Center, located in Silver City, recently named a new director. Jane Janson, who has lived in Silver City for 13 1/2 years, has plenty of goals for her newest job.

She had a long career in San Francisco, doing "financial operation clean up. I would be hired to fix the finances in a company. I was a job hopper and usually worked with a company for about two years at a time." She said her employers included a big international advertiser, a big bank, and Internet startups.

Janson also did premier communications training in the U.S. and did international training for a large CPA firm.

"I moved to New Mexico 46 years ago, so this isn't my first time living here," Janson said. "I went to New Mexico Highlands University and received a master's degree in accounting from the University of New Mexico.

"I am an analyst and problem solver, as well as a financial systems analyst," she continued.

"I came here after laying myself off from the Internet startup," Janson said. "My dear friend Paula Geisler asked me to come visit her in Silver City. It was right when Phelps Dodge had laid off 600 miners, who came to Western. I met George Muncrief, who said: 'Call me. I need teachers.' So since, I have been here, I have taught at Western New Mexico University as an adjunct. When I was still in San Francisco, instead of doing stand up comedy, I taught accounting at night."

She has also served on staff at Western, as coordinator of the Student Success Seminar.

"One day, I bumped into Lee Gruber and helped her apply for the Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP). She hired me to administer the program. Her husband David came in one day with a shoebox of invoices and receipts, so I put Syzygy Tileworks on QuickBooks. I ended up working with small businesses and non-profits."

Janson said she has helped the businesses and agencies plan their budgets, learn how to read financial statements and hire staff.

"When I lived in San Francisco, I did consulting with the San Francisco Zen Center," Janson said. "If you can get monks to do accounting, you can get anyone to do accounting.

"If I want to make a bigger difference in the four-county community of Grant, Luna, Hidalgo and Catron, I can leverage what I know about business and what I know about the local community to help small businesses," Janson said.

She just returned from training with the 19 other SBDC directors in New Mexico. "The breadth and depth of knowledge among these directors is extensive. It won't just be me you are talking to. We can get a lot of help from among the 20 SBDCs, which have 65 people, including staff."

Janson said the procurement technical assistance program (PTAP) can help businesses work with federal and state government as contractors.

The goal of the SBDC is to help businesses start and to help existing businesses grow.

"I also want to work with businesses approaching retirement, so we can retain the businesses," Janson said. "I want to retain the jobs and help with the transition and a sales plan with potential buyers, so the legacy will continue. I advocate for keeping the old business name.

"I also really want to work with younger people who are coming here and staying," she said. "Some have great business ideas. They have different ideas for a population that we want to attract and keep."

She feels it is important, as the SBDC director, to "get out and about and to understand the connections in the community, because we are all working toward common goals. All those with specialties should get together to get things done. I also want to learn what drives our other counties."

"I want to speak with business owners one-on-one," Janson continued. "I want to meet with young professionals. I want to have a pop-up office, with just a sign, where I can talk to people, not for confidential consulting-maybe in front of Walmart or in front of a real estate company or at the farmers' market.

"My job is not to sit in an office, but to find out what people need and go out into the four counties," Janson said. "Our market is not the four counties, but the world.

"Silver City is a community of communities, and I want to bridge those communities," she said.

The local SBDC is under a broad umbrella, as part of WNMU. The umbrella includes the International Business Accelerator, headed by Jerry Pacheco in Santa Teresa, NM.

Linda Kay Jones was the founding director of the local SBDC in 1989, and it was her idea that led to the IBA. She approached the then-state SBDC director, Roy Miller. He liked the idea and suggested she partner with Western.

Linda McArthur has worked for the SBDC for many years and is the organizer of each year's Economic Development Course. Linda Smrkovsky works at the Deming branch of the four-county SBDC, headquartered in Silver City. Janson said she felt kind of left out, laughed and said she might have to change her name to "Linda Jane."

The upcoming annual Economic Development Course, organized in partnership with WNMU, and in cooperation with the New Mexico Economic Development Department, New Mexico SBDC and the NM Rural Alliance, will take place July 19-23 in Silver City.

Call 575-538-6342 or email Linda.McArthur@wnmu.edu for more information on the course.