What’s New
LaGuardia Community
College opens 10,000
Small Businesses
Education Center
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
L aGuardia Community
College debuted their
new 10,000 Small Busi-nesses
Education Cen-ter
with a ribbon cutting ceremony in
Long Island City on Dec. 4.
The 10,000-square-foot center is
filled with large, glass conference rooms
to be used for trainings and events for
students and alumni of Goldman Sachs
10,000 Small Businesses program.
During Governor Andrew Cuomo’s
Cuomo’s first round of NY CUNY
2020 awards in 2014, he gave $5
million to the college for the sole pur-pose
of building the center. NY CUNY
2020 is a state initiative designed to
connect 20 CUNY campuses with
local economic development and
entrepreneurship.
“It’s a fast-paced MBA,” said Gary
Riger of 10,000 Small Businesses
program. The founder and CEO of
the app building company BKLYN.
CO. “I come from an immigrant family,
where my family actually made some
mistakes in business,” said Riger,
whose family came to the U.S with
him in 1992.
10 DECEMBER 2018 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
According to Riger, his parents
could have benefitted from some
of the business advice given during
the program. His family did well for
themselves during his childhood as
they owned an eyeglass shop, a Mrs.
Field’s Cookies store and a Hershey’s
Ice Cream stand, but “then 2008
came and things went south but had
they had a plan in place they would
have been able to mitigate those
risks,” said Riger.
According to Goldman Sachs
10,000 Small Businesses website,
the no-cost program consists of 100
of class time spread out over about
5 months. According to Riger the
program helps business owners learn
to how to “prepare for the worse.”
The program, which launched in
2009, is designed to help small busi-nesses
increase their bottom line
by educating owners on marketing,
firing, hiring, contract negotiations,
systems management, team building
and creating an exit strategy.
“It takes real vision to understand
how to build something,” said Presi-dent
of LaGuardia Community College
Gail O. Mellow. “And to have the vision
to say let me build something that
really relates to small businesses, let
me build something that builds com-munity
and let me build something
that will create a human infrastruc-ture,
that allows us to move forward
in a way that I think, frankly, is so
American.”
According to Goldman Sachs
10,000 Small Businesses website,
over 7,600 business owners from
across all 50 states, Washington
D.C. and Puerto Rico have gradu-ated
from the program. Out the 6,600
businesses in Long Island City, 7 of
those are run by graduates of the
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Busi-nesses
program. Graduates include
Gianna Teoli of Manducatis Rustica,
Mark Albrecht of Albrecht Holdings,
Tony Yang of Gig Computers, Michael
Riotto of MRD, Kathrine Gregory of
The Entrepreneur Space, Roy Castro
of DM IceCream Corp and Nadira El
Khang of NadiraBag.
Photo by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech
/www.qns.com
