"Welcome to the IBEC," Bill Ford says as we settle into the interview, "The Improved Business Enterprise Center!"

Welcome back, indeed. After spending close to three years in limbo-"a virtual company," as Ford puts it-this local business incubator found a new home. Established in 1988, the BEC lost its lease to a facility off Ninth Street in 2003. While the board remained intact, the transition was, as Ford puts it, "traumatic."

Today I'm standing in the tidy lobby of the new building. On the reception desk stands a newly printed brochure: "The Benton Enterprise Center: 'Success Starts Here!'" Ford's day started at four in the morning.Behind a cheeky reference to iPods, Ford isn't kidding about improvement. The Business Enterprise Center returns to help Linn and Benton County businesses survive their first year.

What's in an Incubator?
According to Ford, the BEC is designated as a "High tech, mixed-used incubator." Or "Traded Sector, Technology-Focused" as company documentation states. It currently hosts businesses involved in open source software, biological fuel, and nanotech/microscale devices. But that doesn't shut out Kathrine Cleland, owner and proprietor of Cleland Marketing Consultant. The BEC is also looking at attracting a rural agricultural start-up business. Says Ford, "The incubator is about value-add. What can people get from us
that they can't get from renting regular space?"

Space is but a start. Tripod Data Systems uses half the building at 4100B Research Way, in the heart of the OSU Research Park. Building owner Rich Carone, of Korvis Automation, has let the BEC the 4100A half for nominal rent-2,000 square feet of light industrial space, and 4,000 square feet of office space. Currently, clients can rent cubicles on month-to-month leases, or 3 months for locked offices, or 6 months for light industrial space. Ford expects to rent it all by September 2006.

He also says, "We are not just a rental for space! If space is all somebody needs, there is small-scale commercial space available for a higher price. The BEC is a fantastic place for accountable start-up."

BEC staff believes that among other things, they can brew "hallway alchemy." Common areas will promote mixing and cross-business conversations. A secondary conference room is also available, in part for business and screening brunches with start-up clients: "Bites with Bill," as Ford calls it. There are no office or cubicle stands far from the main conference room, or the bathrooms for that matter. Even the industrial space extends just off the office space. The very arrangement of the building seems intended to use social behaviors and needs to cultivate growing businesses.

This arrangement plays into the concept of BEC value propositions, as outlined in the 2004 Business Plan. Clients receive "instant" office space complete with internet service, desks, chairs, filing cabinets, and telephones. Clients can literally find business help around the corner and down the hall. They benefit from the credibility of a professional office location and a receptionist provides support. The BEC provides classes in subjects such as administration, marketing and finance. The group nature of BEC is aimed at cultivating business and community networking. And finally, the incubator proposes a "quicker time to market and success". In the pre-incubation period, prospective clients are considered. Clients either approach the BEC, or the incubator approaches them through outreach programs conducted through a wide variety of partnerships.The staff and Board filter prospective clients through the application process, and applicants can receive help through the incubator planning services. These services help the applicant compose their proposal in accordance with the Operations Model; it also helps the Board of Directors assess the applicant's legal, business, marketing and funding activities for viability. The application includes an 'idea resume", which is pretty much as it sounds: a resume of the applicant's goals, plans, hypothesis, and theories of establishing a business.

Clients must also submit a business plan to the Board of Directors within six months of enlistment. The BEC hosts weekly presentations and monthly client assessments-all mandatory for continued presence at the building.Requirements like this might be why the Business Enterprise Center graduated 89 companies in 17 years in their old location, generating a success rate of 76%. This figure is comparable to the national average, according to Ford, but failures are not ignored, and success is not always certain.

Meet the Man
Bill Ford embodies an old navy concept -- smooth is fast. He's not a quick man so much as a smooth man - no activity dwelled upon, little movement wasted. Bill walks and talks two steps ahead of my pen."One of the biggest failures of a business is they do not know whether they
are making or losing money. You have to have to have access to capital. You have to make deals work. Practice flexibility." He gives the example of one BEC alumnus who succeeded until a partner company collapsed. The alumnus in turn lost a critical contract.

While the BEC is about getting entrepreneurs off the ground, this retired executive of White's Electronics suffers no illusions about his role: "Virtual incubators don't work for me. I have to have physical space. I have the answer for me. I have my style."

And part of that style seems to be ceaseless tactical and strategic considerations. He may lace it with humor - "Meet my strategic sandwich partner," he says introducing Larry Starcks, franchise owner of the Quizno's where we ate lunch - but Ford point is that "location matters." The BECs proximity to a shopping plaza, complete with a places to eat and a UPS service center, helps to compensate for resources the reinvented incubator still lacks. The old building possessed resources such as a massive copy machine. "Do we need to lease a big piece of equipment when I can build a relationship with the UPS store two blocks down the street? It's about cooperation," he says, "Maximizing and leveraging the infrastructure."

"You can't ever have enough money. Yet people ask me, 'why don't you charge clients for this and that?' Because charging people money isn't the point. Eighty percent of businesses fail in their first year; we want to see eighty percent succeed."

Building Relationships
For a while the BEC's future lay in doubt. In May 2002, owner Ted Sadler decided to sell the BEC's previous home at 800 Starker Avenue in Corvallis. Goodwill Industries later bought the land and extended the lease for the Enterprise Center. Even with generous terms the BEC experienced difficulty making payments. The month-to-month nature of the lease made attracting new clients difficult, since the BEC could not demonstrate a reliable timetable.
At the time, Benton Business quoted Mr. Ford as saying, "Most start-up businesses are looking at a three to four year incubation period, and it's hard for them to come on board when we don't have a permanent location or a good sense of when we'll be moving."

Then came the search for a permanent location. As reported in the April 2003 Benton Business, the OSU Research Park was considered, but that facility was a minimum of seven years down the road. Developer Dan Desler proposed moving the BEC to the Lakeside Industrial Park in Philomath, but a number of challenges stood in the way.

By December 2003, the incubator finally lost the subsidized lease on the Starker Avenue property. BEC maintained its Board of Directors and convened a Business Plan Committee to chart the future. While the attitude of the City of Corvallis was a concern in 2003, Ford now reports that, "Corvallis was supportive and generous. The city and the county kept up on our
traumatic transition from 800 Starker Avenue."According to BEC documentation, it "won the support of the Benton County and City of Corvallis Economic Vitality Partnership (EVP) when it was made part of their first four short-term goals to be achieved from 2004-2006..." The BEC ultimately earned "a flexible and favorable 3-year lease," for the property on Research Way.

Plenty of work remains. The incubator maximizes and leverages the infrastructure through generous lend-use deals with Tripod Data Systems. This neighbor lends the use of its forklifts and pallets for light industrial clients. It also fractionalizes its T1 line to provide affordable-but not free-internet capability. This deal remains in place while Ford draws up a $15,000 grant proposal to the OSU College of Business Selection Committee. The grant seeks to "mitigate the costs of the companies entering the Business Enterprise Center by providing wireless networking, full IT support, as well as funding the system development charges and permit fees."

That's one of many benefits the BEC expects to offer clients. And so the pen turns to those who benefit from the BEC. Next month we'll examine current clients and alumni of the BEC.