Entrepreneurs

In Baltimore City Women Entrepreneurs offers business skills course Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides entrepreneurial training to women and men, is recruiting candidates for its next business skills training course. The deadline to apply is March 26, and screening for the next training course will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 3. To obtain an application: 410-727-4921. Women Entrepreneurs tries to provide an alternative path to self-sufficiency for people who have ideas for a business idea or own a business in need of development.

A typical weekday begins this way for several denizens of Keswick: They get out of bed, stroll a couple of blocks away to the Evergreen, the favorite neighborhood coffee bar, trade neighborly pleasantries and then head back home. Where they begin their day's work. An unusually high number of entrepreneurs who work from their homes are clustered in this tiny neighborhood, which is tucked between Roland Park and Guilford. And that common trait among neighbors here has helped them to rely on one another for the kind of workplace networking that might otherwise come from a colleague at the next cubicle.

Entrepreneurs seeking to set up child-care centers in the Baltimore area are among those eligible for below-market-rate loans from NCNB Corp., the bank holding company announced yesterday."

On March 27, TowsonGlobal at Towson University is marking its fifth anniversary and recognized the achievements of six entrepreneurs who have turned ideas into real businesses. During the Celebration of Entrepreneurial Success ceremony at the university, certificates of accomplishment will be awarded to the incubator's first graduates, which include: Linda Seidel and Estelle Meister of Transcending Cosmetics - a company that was founded to market their proprietary product, Natural Cover, to makeup professionals and medical practitioners.

Perhaps to the surprise of one gender and not the other, female entrepreneurs are more actively adopting new technology for business growth than their male counterparts, according to a newly released study.Among the study's most significant findings is that "the share of women business owners that have established a home page for their business has tripled since last year -- 23 percent now have a home page, compared to 16 percent for men," according to Lois Haber, chairwoman of the National Foundation for Women Business Owners.

Project VisionShare is a nonprofit, but the organization is in line to help entrepreneurs make more money. The newly formed organization, which will have an official launch at Oakland Manor on Wednesday, is an incubator without walls, created to help entrepreneurs form their business ideas and get money to help keep their fledgling businesses running. The program, founded by Brian J. McIntyre, will provide entrepreneurs in any field with low- or no-interest loans up to $25,000, business courses and mentoring support over a two-year period.

MANY WESTERN economists and political pundits are warning that capitalism may fail in Eastern Europe. They say the foot soldiers of a market economy -- entrepreneurs -- are missing. They say the region is entirely without the kind of risk-taking businessmen who have driven economic growth in the West.This gloomy prediction misses the mark, because even though entrepreneurship in state-run economies is negligible, Eastern Europe's vast black-market economy is actually rife with entrepreneurs.

Raymond V. Haysbert has lots of war stories from the days when the founders of Parks Sausage Co. were trying to make their mark, but few gall him more than the one about the time in the 1950s when a Baltimore bank wouldn't lend them $25,000 for inventory when they had $30,000 in the bank."

Like thousands of Bangladeshis served by the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank, Baltimorean Cathy Kratovil is reaping the gains of "micro-enterprise." Backed by Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore, a local micro-enterprise promoter, the 43-year-old mother and grandmother bought a Macintosh computer, started a graphic-design business in her Overlea home and quit a part-time job in May to work for herself. Getting customers is "a hard nut to crack," she says, but she has signed several, and "it's starting to pick up really well for me."

A few weeks ago, McKeever Conwell joined the Baltimore Tech Facebook group, which has more than 600 online members. There, the 25-year-old computer engineer proposed an idea: How about getting a small group together to practice business pitches? He offered to hold the event in his living room. What happened next stunned Conwell. People he didn't know embraced his idea and moved it forward. One man offered free office space and a catered lunch at his accounting services company; others pulled in experienced advisers to give the entrepreneurs feedback.