The Idaho Small Business Development Center Network offers confidential, no-cost business consultations and affordable training for entrepreneurs. It staffs six regional offices in Idaho, each affiliated with an institution of higher learning. Boise State and the College of Business and Economics host both the Southwest Idaho regional office and the state office.
“We are able to tap into the expertise of the college’s faculty, talented students and innovative programs to provide exceptional support to small businesses across Idaho,” State Director Doug Covey said. “What makes this relationship impactful is how it extends our reach into rural communities, where resources can be limited.”
The center offers the tools, training and consulting that small business owners need to grow, Covey said. “We’re ensuring that even the most remote Idaho communities have the opportunity to benefit.”
The power of partnerships
Centers operate in every state in the U.S. and its territories thanks to a 1980 congressional act recognizing the need for a program combining higher education, government and the private sector to support small businesses. Idaho’s centers receive funding from the federal government and the State of Idaho.
In 2023, Idaho’s Small Business Development Center’s offices collectively helped entrepreneurs generate over $750 million in business sales, create or retain 2,009 jobs and secure $63 million in capital. Consultants helped Idahoans create 122 new businesses.
Debbie Winkler, a senior business consultant in the Boise State office, comes to her role with a background in commercial and corporate banking, including credit underwriting and lending. She also created a Small Business Association lending program. Her 17 years with the center are emblematic of the longevity and expertise of its staff.
“In 2024, I worked with 144 different businesses each with their unique challenges, needs and projects crossing over all of the core areas of businesses. It’s a fast-paced environment with lots of juggling,” Winkler said.
Some days are challenging when her consulting focuses on issues like cash flow crunches and financing. Other days bring rewards, like when a new business gets a loan or hires a new employee. “My role with the Idaho SBDC has never felt like a job. I like making a difference when I can,” she said.
Idaho entrepreneurs help tell the story of Idaho’s Small Business Development Center.
Doug Croft: Lubrication Sciences International
Doug Croft, CEO of Lubrication Sciences in Nampa, Idaho, may define what it means to be a “Bronco’s Bronco.” The two-time graduate (BBA, accounting, 1997, EMBA, 2021) comes from a family with deep Idaho and Boise State roots. His father, H. David Croft, and his grandmother, Victoria Croft, graduated together in 1965 in Boise State College’s first baccalaureate class. Victoria Croft was a longtime employee in the registrar’s office. H. David Croft became a dentist with a practice in Caldwell, Idaho. Not only did Dr. Croft serve as president of the Alumni Association and the Bronco Athletic Association, he made the mouthguards for Bronco sports teams. Two endowed Croft family scholarships now support students.
Doug Croft credits the EMBA program and Professor Jim Browning with connecting him to engineering grant opportunities. His current business, Lubrication Sciences International, produces Dicronite, a dry film lubricant invented in the 1960s with help from NASA for use in aerospace applications.
“We’re a niche business,” Croft said. Dicronite is suitable for high-performance engines in extreme environments – very hot or cold, for example – where traditional wet lubricants don’t work well. In addition to aerospace, Croft’s company licenses Dicronite technology and brand to 11 companies for use in the automotive, medical, semiconductor and other industries.
“The SBDC has been fantastic,” said Croft, who returned home to Idaho in 2019 after a career working for international infrastructure organizations with posts in Libya, New Zealand and New York.
Croft’s company operates at the center’s accelerator space in Nampa, Idaho. “Finding an affordable, mixed-use facility with industrial space suitable to house large equipment as well as space for product research and trials is not easy, but is critical,” he said. While he is well-versed in business, he considers Marie Baker, regional director of the center’s Southwest Idaho office for the past six years, a trusted consultant.
“Marie understands numbers. We speak the same language,” he said.
Networking opportunities with other center-affiliated businesses have also been a great asset. “We’re all in the same boat — not having huge budgets, but sharing big ideas,” Croft said.
Julie Fredrick: Cozy Cat Resort and The Pet Sitter of Boise
Alum Julie Fredrick (MBA, 2005), took a layoff from her engineering job as an opportunity to find a new career that better fit her temperament. A lifelong animal lover, she founded The Pet Sitter of Boise in 2003. She hadn’t intended pet sitting to become a full-time job, but it did when her expertise and team-building skills met a demand for trustworthy animal care. She and her team of 45 employees have tended dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs, even a monkey.
After some years, having weathered the pandemic, a restructuring of her business and a bout of burnout, Fredrick expanded and opened a hotel dedicated to cats. The Cozy Cat Resort opened a year and a half ago in Boise. An average of 20 cats – more during the summer months and holidays – stay during the week, enjoying amenities like individual “condos” and active play space.
Her connection with the Small Business Development Center let her tap into the expertise of Boise State business students who worked on Fredrick’s feline hotel as a class assignment. They helped her create an employee handbook, write a marketing plan, and come up with the name of the hotel itself.
Winkler is Frederick’s counselor at the center.
“She helped me with a strategy for scaling and growth,” Fredrick said. “We would sit together and fill a whiteboard. She would say, ‘You’re here now. How can you get to where you want to be? Debbie lined it all out.'” Winkler helped Fredrick weather personnel issues. And when Fredrick was working with the city on zoning for her business, Winkler was at her side.
“If I need to bounce ideas off someone, Debbie will give me honest feedback. And she won’t sugarcoat things,” Fredrick said. “Being a business owner can be a lonely thing. It’s good to have someone in your corner.”
Beyond the Treasure Valley
Jamie Wood: Hares & Hatters Bookshop
Hares & Hatters Bookshop, an independent bookseller, opened its doors in downtown Pocatello, Idaho, in June 2024. Co-owners Jamie Wood and Nicki Stanton, both avid readers and writers, began their business journey two years ago by hosting “pop-up” bookstores around town. They also ran a “micro-shop” in a local coffee house that still serves as a satellite location for their growing venture.
The guidance of the Small Business Development Center has been invaluable, Wood said. Through the service, business students designed a survey to determine what kind of bookshop would best serve the community. They helped Wood and Stanton set up an accounting system and refine their online presence. The Small Business Development office at Idaho State University even connected them to business students at the University of Idaho who helped them write a business operating agreement.
What’s more, all of this assistance has been free from their counselors at the center.
“They’re responsive, warm, and kind,” Wood said. “They never make you feel small for not knowing something.”
Jordan Menzel: Maple Grove Hot Springs
Jordan Menzel, founder of Maple Grove Hot Springs in Thatcher, Idaho, has built a unique retreat center. The site, home to yoga workshops, cozy yurts, and a philosophy of sustainability, aims “to introduce people to new ways of thinking and being on their wellness journey – and we happen to have a hot spring,” Menzel said.
Over the past five years, Menzel, a Salt Lake City native, has restored what had been a derelict campground about an hour from Pocatello into a thriving business that meshes with its surroundings.
The road wasn’t easy, even for someone like Menzel with a professional past that includes teaching economics and working in international humanitarian development and software startups.
“Banks wouldn’t loan to us. We were off-grid and solar-powered. That was a deal breaker for every potential lender,” Menzel said. He built early support with a successful private fundraising campaign.
“After a nine-month process of commercial banks saying no, in seven days I raised the amount I needed from seven women on the same terms the bank would have given us,” Menzel said.
His counselor from the Small Business Development Center, Ann Swanson, regional director of the Southeast Idaho office at Idaho State University for more than a decade (and a Maple Grove patron), “watched and supported and helped connect me to the right people to think through how I was going to approach self-financing,” Menzel said.
He now enjoys a 504 loan – a long-term, fixed-rate loan from the Small Business Administration and he recently co-presented with Swanson for a webinar about problem-solving for small businesses.
“The takeaway is that everyone should connect with their local offices. I learned early on that there is a secret power in raising your hand in a meeting and saying I’m the luckiest, but most clueless person in the room. I have serious problems, how do I solve them? The SBDC is the place I get to ask questions and get answers from the most experienced experts.”
Wendy Smiley-Johnson: Moscow Alehouse
Wendy Smiley-Johnson first set foot in the Moscow Alehouse (then known as The Alehouse) in Moscow, Idaho, two decades ago. Describing herself as a “server at heart.” She worked behind the bar, waited tables and managed the business for years. Today, she owns it and its historic building in downtown Moscow.
She employs around 30 people and supports local charities. She leans heavily on her experiences in the industry. “I graduated with honors from the School of Hard Knocks,” she said, adding that she learned as much about what not to do from bad managers as she learned about what to do from the good ones. She has created a healthy, respectful workplace for her employees.
None of this would have happened, she said, without the North Central Idaho Small Business Development Center’s office at Lewis Clark State College.
“Todd [Todd Broadman, business consultant with a decade of experience] walked me through everything. He was my voice working with the bank,” Smiley-Johnson said. He helped her negotiate a good rate for a loan, helped with paperwork and business projections. And the relationship continues. Not only is Broadman helping the 57-year-old Smiley-Johnson look ahead to retirement, but he connected her with a government grant to subsidize the replacement of inadequate heating and cooling systems in her building. Through Broadman she has also learned about opportunities for women-owned businesses.
Smiley-Johnson considers herself an ambassador for the Small Business Development Center, she already has connected a friend who wanted to open a barbecue business to Broadman. “Some people just do their job, but Todd’s heart wants you to succeed. My success is his success,” she said.
Can the Idaho Small Business Development Center help you?
Here’s how the service defines a small business.
– fewer than 500 employees, including affiliates
– independently owned and operated
– not nationally dominant in its field
– has a place of business in the U.S. and operates primarily within the U.S.
– makes a significant contribution to the U.S. economy
Find more information, request an appointment or find the nearest office on the website or call (800) 225-3815.