SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Small-business owners from Syracuse, Munnsville, Endwell, and Cooperstown are among the nine graduates of this year’s SBA THRIVE program in the upstate New York district.
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) THRIVE program seeks to help small businesses grow nationwide. THRIVE, a free national training program, is short for train, hope, rise, innovate, venture, elevate.
The nine graduates of the Upstate district include Michael Mowins of Vetted Tech Inc. in Syracuse; Sarah Ficken of New Moon Farmstead, LLC in Munnsville in Madison County; John Hussar of Grey Goose Graphics, LLC of Endwell in Broome County; and Rebecca Stone of Agrinomic Insights LLC of Cooperstown in Otsego County. Other participants included entrepreneurs from Clyde, Queensbury, Saratoga Springs, Loudonville in Albany County, and Gilbertsville in Otsego County.
A redesigned version of the SBA’s annual Emerging Leaders program, THRIVE is a hybrid, six-month course aiming to help small businesses develop and execute strategic growth plans. Participants completed online learning modules and met in Syracuse twice a month throughout the program, sharing business challenges, feedback, and opportunities with one another.
This year’s class was the “most geographically diverse of any prior years,” the SBA said. Participants represented eight different counties — half of which are rural — some traveling two or more hours both ways to learn and support their peers during in-person sessions. The graduates included women-owned small businesses and veteran-owned small businesses, the agency noted.