Amelia Lobo '99 works with ISED Women's Business Center to help women hone their entrepreneurial skills

"It's not the same thing to be a great cook as it is to be a successful restaurateur," said Amelia Lobo, director of the Women's Business Center. "Pam worked with us for a long time to get ready, and she eventually quit her day job and started the restaurant."

Developing new skills, such as understanding financial statements and writing a business plan, represents some of the biggest challenges for prospective women business owners, Lobo said. "When you're thinking about starting a new business, that can really be quite overwhelming," she said. "I want to make sure that the women we work with are as ready as possible for opening a business and running a business."

Sitting in Patton's restaurant, Lobo pointed out several other women-owned businesses along East Grand Avenue that her center has assisted, including Western clothing store La Bufa, Rolling Wok Cafe and Secretos Beauty Salon. The Women's Business Center is in the process of producing a directory of past clients who are still in business, a number that now exceeds 200 businesses, she said.

The ISED Women's Business Center is part of a network of 110 women's business centers across the country. "We provide training and one-on-one counseling; most of our services are free," Lobo said. "We also help them to connect with financing. We don't do lending ourselves, but we try to help our clients get prepared to apply for loans, whether those are microloans or bank loans. And we also try to get them to think creatively about how they can start a business with perhaps less money. For instance, by starting out catering before you open a physical space."

The center's business planning class is very popular, Lobo said, filling up with about 15 aspiring women entrepreneurs four or five times a year.

"One of the things I focus on is trying to get people to think early on about what they'll need to be ready for business growth," she said. For instance, counselors can work one-on-one with aspiring business owners to review their personal credit reports to identify areas they need to work on to raise their credit score, so they'll have a better chance of obtaining credit down the road for their business.