THATCHER — The next group of successful female entrepreneurs are ready to do business.
The Small Business Development Center at Eastern Arizona College celebrated 10 new graduates of the Dreambuilder business education program Thursday.
“I like how laid-out the program was,” said Kristie Tingle, owner of Tingle Treasures LLC. “The program had every aspect you could think of in a business, and a lot of the areas were areas I was somewhat doing, but I was self taught. So going into the program has opened my eyes to see some of the areas I need to improve on and areas that I can expand.”
With support from Freeport-McMoRan, Dreambuilder was designed by the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, as way to help female small business owners succeed. The program is in 134 countries and, since its inception, has offered 1 million hours of instruction to more than 1,000 graduates.
“We had such a great group of women, such a great cohort (with) wonderful energy,” said Sandra Udall-Robinson, who headed up the program for the SBDC.
2022 Graham County graduates included Nona Black, Tiffany Faunce, Ivon Hansen, Andra Jensen, Clara Ochoa, Martha Quezada, Sage Romero, Elieth Salazar-Alpizar, Desiree Schnell and Tingle.
The keynote speaker at the graduation event was Jenny Howard, owner of Ginaveve’s Marketplace and the Tiny Bean Coffee Co.
She said that nearly one-third of Americans are entrepreneurs and three out of 10 of those small business owners are women. Female business owners also produce 10 percent more revenue over a five-year span than their male counterparts.
“By supporting each other, and by implementing programs such as the Dreambuilder program, women can conquer the barriers to entrepreneurial success,” Howard said. “The number of female entrepreneurs is rising every day, every year. And in these crazy, unprecedented times, that’s really wonderful news.”
The next cohort will focus on Greenlee County and will take place in the fall.
