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Entrepreneurship Award Presented to Chilton Rogers of ASU

At the 2008 N.C. Entrepreneurship Summit held in Greensboro, NC on February 26th, Chilton Rogers was recognized for her leadership in creating an emerging entrepreneurship region in rural North Carolina. As the three-year, $2 million Rural Entrepreneur Development System project funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation draws to a close, project director Leslie Scott from the N.C. Rural Center recognized entrepreneurial leaders from two rural regions in North Carolina. In her presentation Ms. Scott remarked that “entrepreneurial regions only emerge when they have entrepreneurial leaders.”

One of these leaders is from Appalachian State University. Chilton Rogers, Deputy Director of ASU’s Appalachian Regional Development Institute, was singled out for her leadership in developing an emerging entrepreneurial region in the northwest counties of North Carolina. Upon receiving the award, Ms. Rogers commented, “I must say, I was quite surprised -- I've never received such an award, and I truly appreciate it. There are a lot of people who deserve credit up here. As you know, one person may be a great catalyst, but she must have great partners to succeed!”

The northwest effort stemmed in large part from Ms. Rogers' leadership on a local entrepreneurship demonstration project in Watauga County that the Rural Center and N.C. Department of Commerce funded in 2004. She was also one of five people from N.C. who attended the E2 Energizing Entrepreneurship in Rural America weeklong workshop to become certified as an E2 trainer and has since been involved in five E2 Institutes across North Carolina.

Through the Kellogg Foundation Rural EDS project, she helped build the Watauga County effort to include partners, communities and entrepreneurs from throughout the eight-county High Country region. In addition to the “Start Your Own Business” workshop series offered twice a year at the Appalachian Enterprise Center in Boone in conjunction with the ASU Center for Entrepreneurship, she and partners worked to develop a regional network of business service providers, entrepreneurs and community leaders now known as the High Country Business Network which meets bimonthly across the region.
Other efforts include the High Country Business Resource Alliance and a new website, HighCountryBiz.com. for entrepreneurs and small business owners to better find business expertise, resources and assistance for growing their businesses in the region. An auxiliary web tool to the website under development is the "Resource Navigator" that will allow business owners to search available services and programs by zip code.

Olga Abrams with the Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments was also recognized for her leadership in developing an emerging entrepreneurial region in Nash, Edgecombe, Wilson, Halifax and Northampton counties. Their effort has focused on creating a regional network for aspiring and existing entrepreneurs and small businesses by convening a quarterly group of partners that has been offering business expos around the region, and her office is now based in a regional business incubator in downtown Wilson.

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