WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

The Bank of America Entrepreneurial Center at Old Dominion University provides business development related research and education, primarily to technology driven companies in the private sector. The Center is affiliated with the College of Business & Public Administration at ODU and works closely with the Dean and the MBA Program Director.

The center has a sixteen year history of assisting technology businesses in Southeast Virginia. The cumulative benefit in tax revenues alone is estimated to be in excess of $6 million per year. Members of the Center have provided assistance for business planning purposes, interim management education, and researching every aspect of business operations.

The staff currently includes four Directors, each with considerable experience and demonstrated accomplishments in a variety of business disciplines, including strategic planning and business development, financial planning, marketing strategy, information technology, organization planning, business operations, and many other facets of business management.

These senior management people are also available on a limited basis to provide interim top management education for clients when needed. Two of them also teach business related graduate and undergraduate courses, as adjunct faculty members at ODU.

THe Entrepreneurial Center has also concentrated on creating infrastructure that is beneficial to small technology businesses. The Center created Waterside Capital, the first institutional venture fund in the region, which is now a public company, and worked closely with the management of the Center For Innovative Technology to develop the regional SBDC. It also manages the Private Investor Network for Angels for both sophisticated and accredited investors. Also, the Center was directly involved in establishing the NASA/ Hampton Roads technology incubator.

The Center's services are consistently performed with a very low investment by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and regularly involve the added assistance and services of both ODU MBA students and a variety of experienced volunteer advisors from the business community.

The thrust of the Center's efforts is to promote excellence in business planning and to help provide the resources to effectively move client firms forward as the seek to achieve planned business success. The Center has helped its clients raise over $350,000,000 since 1988.

Click here to some actual and types of clients which the Center has assisted over the past fifteen years that are still producing revenue and jobs.

Click here to see our executive management team and their business biographies.