We stand this morning on the trading floor of Duluth’s historic Grain Exchange, an important place of commerce for the first half of the 20th century.  It is a wonderful venue in which to talk about a new way to do business today.

Three and a half years ago, Tom Renier, Joe Sertich and I sat in Tom’s office and started a conversation about entrepreneur development. Those conversations, and the planning, research, and site visits that followed, has — so far — engaged more the 30 organizations and institutions in the region, along with countless individuals.

Along the way, as we envisioned our economic future, we wondered…

• What if we could, by working together, change our community attitudes about entrepreneurship and the opportunity it presents to drive local ownership, wealth creation and new jobs? 
• What if after high school or college graduation, our youth considered starting a business rather than getting a job?
• What if, when our neighbors were really successful in their businesses, we could be happy for them and celebrate their risk and reward?
• What if, when our neighbor’s businessfailed, we could support him and encourage him to use what he learned to try another business?
• What if we could return to the attitudes of a hundred years ago when pioneers and entrepreneurs came here seizing the opportunity to create wealth, businesses, and jobs? They created places like this Grain Exchange. 
• What if our region’s service providers could link up to create a continuum of capital and services for entrepreneurs? Could we make it easier for them to figure out where to get the help they needed at the right time?
• What if we could identify and fill gaps in services that entrepreneurs need, so we could increase our impact on business formation and success?
• What if, working together, service providers could target their support in an organized and systematic way toward entrepreneurs who were ready and willing to grow?

Certainly we can point to examples of entrepreneurial success in this region. But to change our economic future, we agreed that we needed to do more to increase our production of new locally-owned businesses and to grow our existing businesses. And great businesses needs a great entrepreneurs.

This morning we gather to announce the launch of the Greenstone Group, which is the result of the research and those many conversations.

The Greenstone Group is an intentional, systematic strategy to cultivate entrepreneurship in northeastern MN and Douglas County in WI. It is innovative, and built on best practice. Working with our many partners we expect, over the next 10 years, to significantly increase the number and skill level of the entrepreneurs who are growing locally-owned businesses. We will measure our success in economic terms — in business expansion, wealth and job creation, and economic diversification.

This is a comprehensive strategy with 2 elements&ellip; the first focuses directly on entrepreneurs and the second focuses on creating an environment that supports entrepreneurship.  

In the first element, the Greenstone Group will target entrepreneurs at all stages of growth and development to increase business formation and growth.   

It might be helpful here to define what we mean by an entrepreneur. Every person who is starting or growing a business is a business owner. A business owner is focused on operating their business in its current form, and growth or change is probably incremental.  Whether a startup or an existing business, a business owner becomes an “entrepreneur” when they are developing a new idea, strategy, product or service that has the potential for business growth and expansion.  The Greenstone Group will target its resources toward people with that entrepreneurial spark — when they are ready to act on their ideas and strategies for growing their business.

We have learned that entrepreneurs need two kinds of assistance. The first is transactional and focused usually on advancing the business. It’s what we as service providers do when we help with business plans, product development, or loan packaging.  The other kind of assistance, which the Greenstone Group will provide, is essentially transformational and is focused on growing the skill level of the entrepreneur. Experienced, professional business coaches will help entrepreneurs transform and improve their skills to better equip them to grow their businesses.          

Initially we will focus on entrepreneurs with existing businesses. Over the next 10 years, 500 entrepreneurs will be teamed up — in Greenstone Groups — with 5-9 of their peers and a coach&ellip; while they are growing their business.  They will benefit from peer support and individual coaching. In addition, these entrepreneurs will have access to a coordinated network of service providers who are committed to providing them the right services at the right time.  To be considered for participation in a Greenstone Group, the entrepreneur will have a plan for growing their business, a plan that could lead to significant growth and expansion. 

We expect that all 500 entrepreneurs will be more successful in their business.  Many will create some new jobs and wealth.  A few will create much wealth and many jobs.  It is very likely we will help an entrepreneur or two grow a business the size of Cirrus, or spawn a cluster of new businesses spinoffs around the large scale mining opportunities proposed for the Iron Range.  And again, success will be measured in economic terms.  

The second component of this comprehensive strategy is that we will work in the region to change people’s attitudes about entrepreneurship as an economic choice. We will encourage increased entrepreneurship education in the schools and colleges, and more community events and activities that focus on entrepreneurship. 

People, after all, do what they know how to do.  We want to tell more stories about our region’s successful entrepreneurs that encourage others to test their entrepreneurial wings and think differently about their economic future.

This is a new initiative for the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund and a 10-year strategy.  Change, after all, takes a very long time and it is also expensive. The Greenstone Group budget over the next 10 years is $11 million. We looked for a key resource partner and we found one in the John S and James L Knight Foundation.

Actually&ellip; we found that partner in Polly Talen who has been a tireless champion, supporter, and advocate for this initiative.  

It is my pleasure to introduce Polly Talen, program director for the John S and James L Knight Foundation.