Monday, October 27, 2008

Company invests time, cash in rural entrepreneurs

As a general rule, small entrepreneurs have to fight to stay afloat, but the challenge of starting a successful company is even more difficult in areas where economic hardship is a way of life. But one company makes such companies its business.

Kentucky Highlands Investment Corp. is working to strengthen entrepreneurship and create jobs in Southern and Eastern Kentucky by investing in and training small business owners. "Kentucky Highlands has succeeded by doing things differently and by playing to its region's strengths," writes Tom Eblen in the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The agency invests relatively small amounts of money in local people and businesses that can gradually create sustainable jobs."

"We're a catalyst," said Jerry Rickett, president of Kentucky Highlands since 1989. "We're trying to find ways to facilitate the creation and retention of jobs." In forty years of operation, the company says it has created 10,000 jobs in 22 Appalachian counties. (Read more)

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