Flagship Enterprise Center

| 2701 Enterprise Drive | Anderson, IN 46013 | 765.622.0100

ANDERSON, Ind. — Dwayne Landwehr looks at the local economy and sees plenty of reason for concern.

“We’re obviously all hurting right now,” Landwehr, said. “I don’t think that’s a question. It’s very possible we’re heading into a second dip in this recession.”

Landwehr, one of the region’s top business leaders, is heading up the new IDEA Academy, which assembles local businesspeople in an effort to improve growth and revenues. The IDEA acronym stands for “Innovate, Demonstrate, Educate, Accelerate,” spelling out the organization’s mission. The program is expected to meet once monthly for a year.

As executive director of the Flagship Enterprise Center, Landwehr has long been involved in helping start-up endeavors get off the ground. However, the IDEA Academy will focus on helping existing business to grow and survive, rather than starting new ones.

“Outreach to local business is always something we’ve tried to do,” Landwehr said. “I feel like there are a lot of people out there who could use a little help.”

Landwehr estimated 40 people in all walks of business had already signed up for the first class.

“Bankers, realtors, retailers, professional service providers, we have all different kinds of people. It pertains to almost any business.”

Tammy Rimer, CEO of CN Design and Marketing, looked forward to the mentor aspect of the course.

“I’m a big proponent of mentoring and talking with people who have gone through similar problems that we face,” she said. “I expect good things to come from this.”

CN Design and Marketing is based at the Flagship and entering its third active year in business. The company has set major goals to meet in the coming fiscal year and Rimer believes that IDEA can help it achieve those goals.

“As growing businesses we all need support,” she said. “It costs less than $1200 per year to do IDEA. If you were to add up the costs of meeting with lawyers, accountants and so on to get this kind of information it would cost much, much more.”

To be precise, IDEA costs $79 per session.

The course is partly funded by a grant from the Madison County Community Foundation. Director Sally Devoe said the grant committee believed it to be a worthwhile endeavor in developing local businesses.

“We saw the chance for some serious collaboration while saving operation dollars,” she said. “When you have entities with similar missions it just a much more efficient way to do business.”

Landwehr said he could “guarantee” that anyone attending the class would come away with at least “10 new ideas” to help their business grow. A major part of the class, he said, was that business owners would be able to implement those ideas with the benefit of continuing guidance.

“We’re going to have a lot of peer-to-peer discussions, providing feedback and so on,” he said. “The benefit of having a year-long course is so that people won’t just go home and forget what they’ve learned.”

The importance of those lasting lessons is even further magnified in a tough economy, Landwehr believes.

“Almost anybody can survive in a good economy,” he said, “but in the bad times only the strongest survive. It’s important that as many people as possible can get this kind of information because we want to see small local business continue to get stronger.”

Contact Michael D. Doyle, 640-4805, michael.doyle@heraldbulletin.com.