County of San Bernardino: Economic Development Agency

Entrepreneurship

San Bernardino County is home to the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE), a nationally recognized training ground for business owners hosted by California State University, San Bernardino. The young center is already gaining national attention, ranking among the top 75 in the nation in 2005, according to Entrepreneur magazine.

The center includes the Office of Technology Transfer and Commercialization, an incubator designed to guide promising innovations from the laboratory to the business world.

The office has funded 42 cutting-edge technologies, about a third for locally-based companies, primarily with grants from the U.S. Department of Defense. Under Michael Stull, IECE’s director, the university began an Integrated Technology Transfer Network at the master’s degree level. The program, which began with 10 fellows a year ago, teaches business acumen to top young scientists hand-picked from around the nation.

IECE also launched a Women’s Business Center to assist women entrepreneurs; a Family Business Partnership which works with closely held, family-owned businesses; the Small Farms Initiative, which seeks to assist small farms and ranches with business and agricultural training and consulting; and a Minority Resource Center – Entrepreneurial Training and Technical Assistance Program which provides mentoring and matchmaking to small, disadvantaged businesses seeking to work with the U.S. Department of Transportation.