By Robert J. McCarthy
The Buffalo News
Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate setting to announce a new federal grant to encourage entrepreneurs in upstate New York.
At the former Trico Products windshield wiper factory now transformed into a gleaming new “innovation center,” other federal officials joined Gillibrand to highlight a $500,000 award from the Economic Development Administration to create an entrepreneurship mentoring program that will assist startup companies in 27 upstate counties. The money will be directed toward Launch NY, a nonprofit venture development organization.
“You are the ones who come up with the ideas,” Gillibrand told a gathering of entrepreneurs in the Ellicott Street facility, “not only as job creators but as innovators.”
The senator was joined by Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Jay Williams, the former mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, who is now assistant secretary of commerce in the Obama administration. He spoke passionately about the government’s role in encouraging new businesses to the approximately 30 executives gathered for a roundtable discussion of the challenges facing startups.
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