Sedalia, Missouri – Feb. 19, 2021 – The University of Missouri Extension – Business Development Program (BDP) at its annual celebration of performance of statewide staff and teams in January recognized Director Kelly Asbury and State Fair Community College’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for several accomplishments for the recent fiscal year.
SFCC’s SBDC and Asbury were ranked in the Top 6 Greatest Impact Generation: Business Starts; in the Top 6 Highest Number of Training Sessions Held; and Top 5 Highest Client Satisfaction. SFCC’s center also received the Overall Performance Center Award for meeting all Small Business Administration required goals, excelling at completing network goals, using creative approaches to serve clients, building relationships with stakeholders, and enhancing the Missouri SBDC (MOSBDC) in the college’s SBDC region.
For her Business Development Program work, Asbury earned BDP Recruiter for recruiting expertise from another staff person in the BDP network for the benefit of a client, and BDP First Responder for responding to another BDP staff person’s request for assistance on a client case.
The MOSBDC helps business owners make confident decisions to start, grow and promote their businesses. Services are provided to all Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis in the form of training events and one-to-one counseling by appointment.
As director, Asbury is responsible for providing encouragement and access to training and resources to help Missourians identify and develop their ideas to successfully start and grow their businesses. From her office on SFCC’s Sedalia campus, Asbury serves the citizens in 12 counties: Bates, Benton, Camden, Cass, Henry, Hickory, Johnson, Lafayette, Morgan, Pettis, Saline, and St. Clair. Asbury coordinates on-site and online seminars and training that covers topics from how to start and manage a small business to how to market and use social media to grow it.
Asbury joined the Missouri SBDC team in 2017, which is a part of SFCC’s The LearningForce office that coordinates community continuing education and workforce training initiatives. During her tenure with the SBDC, she has achieved great success. Asbury graduated from SFCC in 2001 with an Associate of Arts and received a Bachelor’s in Management in 2013 from Central Methodist University. She has more than 25 years of experience in owning and managing small businesses.
Through a partnership between the Small Business Administration, Missouri University Extension Business Development program, and State Fair Community College, the MOSBDC at the college is able to provide no-cost business consulting and low-cost trainings to small businesses within the 12 counties the center and Asbury serves. She and the SFCC center has assisted clients in acquiring just under $9.8 million in loans/capital, creating 135 jobs, starting of 48 new business, counseling 542 clients, and providing 171 trainings for 1,398 participants since the MOSBDC at SFCC opened.
For more information about SFCC’s SBDC, contact Asbury at kasbury1@sfccmo.edu or (660) 596-7350.
