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WISE Center Celebrates a Decade of Putting Women in Business

John Smith
/
WAER News

A business center dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs has come a long way in the past decade. The WISE center at SU’s Whitman School of Management celebrated its 10th anniversary Monday.  

We started out as a little tiny office and now we have a 1,000 square feet ready for people that are willing to put the work in to becoming a women owned business,” said center director Joanne Lenweaver.                      

Lenweaver says the WISE has helped more than 8,000 women start or grow their businesses over the past decade.  She has enjoyed watching not only her clients’ businesses grow, but watching WISE grow as well.  The center hosts classes, trainings, business counseling services and more. Lenweaver says the opportunity to work in groups allows the women to use each other for help. 

Believe that women start businesses and tribes. They do it as a compliment to each other," Lenweaver said.  "They make sure to ask for help if they need it.  It is important that we do not allow them to think they are not worth it."                           

Alyse Holstein is on the WISE advisory board and says the center is helping women overcome the struggles that arise after having children.

Credit wisecenter.org

Women are normally taking care of their children and it is hard when they are wanting to be at home and not able to take on the financial responsibilities of starting a company," Holstein said. "WISE helps find funding through the SBA [Small Business Administration]."          

Holstein says juggling roles can be difficult, but she says it’s becoming increasingly possible.

"Women can take on this role an a younger age and succeed because there's more evidence that women can be successful at any age in life and get the resources whether they are financial, pier to pier or other business opportunities right away."                     

WISE counseled 128 individuals last year with revenues totaling 58 million dollars.  More information is at wisecenter.org.

Scott Willis covers politics, local government, transportation, and arts and culture for WAER. He came to Syracuse from Detroit in 2001, where he began his career in radio as an intern and freelance reporter. Scott is honored and privileged to bring the day’s news and in-depth feature reporting to WAER’s dedicated and generous listeners. You can find him on twitter @swillisWAER and email him at srwillis@syr.edu.