(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2022)
Amy Amoroso
The Veterans Business Outreach Center was named an Outstanding Resource Partner of the federal Small Business Administration, an honor the SBA will celebrate during Small Business Week, May 2 to 5.
The VBOC is one of 22 around the country. Eight or nine submitted paperwork for the award, but the Region 2 VBOC, at home in the McNulty Veteran Business Center of Watervliet, was the only one to win, officials said.
“We are celebrated as one of SBA's resource partners,” said Kathy Caruso, director the McNulty Center. “We were recognized for our performance as a center as a whole, for the services we provide, our training, our counseling.”
VBOCs nationwide are supported by the SBA. Region 2 covers New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The nonprofit McNulty Veteran Business Center is the host organization of the VBOC.
Nationally, VBOCs offer the SBA’s “Boots to Business” training program and the “Govology” class that helps veterans win government contracts.
The local VBOC is a center for other resources such as Vetrn, a program that offers a free, online MBA program to veterans or their family members.
“It started as a pilot program [in 2021] and Amy worked with them, and now it has become more nationally known,” Caruso said.
Caruso added: "She [Amy] was founding member of the U.S., Mexico and Canada agreement that started last year.”
“Amy” is Amy Amoroso, the director of the VBOC.
Amoroso said over the past year, she has been working with her counterparts in Mexico and Canada under the USMCA to bring business experts together and find and trade and import/export opportunities for veterans there. The USMCA is the renegotiated NAFTA agreement.
Although the main focus of the VBOC and the McNulty Center is helping veterans make a transition from military to civilian life, especially as entrepreneurs, that is not all they do, Amoroso said.
“We do extra projects too on the side,” Amoroso said. “Veterans can come to our office, regardless of the situation they’re in. Whether it’s an entrepreneur question, an employment question, education, health. They’re still going to get the guidance from us, or at least a referral” to the proper resource, Amoroso said. “We’re not turning a veteran away.”
According to the press materials, the SBA recognizes the three 2022 National Small Business Week Resource Partners for their “impact on local economic development, job creation, and support of small business growth in the U.S., especially among women and veteran entrepreneurs as well as small business owners from rural communities.”
The three winners: Metro-Atlanta Women’s Business Center (WBC) in Norcross, Georgia; Louisville Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in Louisville, Kentucky; McNulty Veteran Business Center (VBOC) in Watervliet, New York.
The SBA will co-host a free, four-day virtual summit from May 2 through May 5, 2022, along with SCORE, to honor the nation’s 32.5 million small businesses for their perseverance, their press materials say.
Editor's Note: The McNulty Veterans Business Center and the VBOC advertise with FoothillsBusinessDaily.com.