This board knows firsthand perils of running a business

COURTESY R.I. SMALL BUSINESS RECOVERY PROGRAM
HIS OWN TERMS: R.I. Small Business Recovery Program founder David E. Nash calls his new role a “wonderful part of retirement.”
COURTESY R.I. SMALL BUSINESS RECOVERY PROGRAM HIS OWN TERMS: R.I. Small Business Recovery Program founder David E. Nash calls his new role a “wonderful part of retirement.”

Retired as president and CEO of the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, David E. Nash is still doing his best to promote business development. He’s the founder of the Rhode Island Small Business Recovery Program, which he began in January 2011. The free program is designed to move the unemployed to self-employment and last year trained 2,400 people.
Nash also holds “Team Works Mastermind” meetings, which bring together business owners who serve as a board of directors of sorts for each other, solving problems and offering advice on growing their businesses.

PBN: Recently you have been promoting “mastermind” groups in several municipalities. What are they?
NASH: The mastermind groups aren’t new; I’ve been holding them since about one year after I retired from the Chamber, perhaps 2002 or 2003. What’s new is that we’ve been expanding them. We have found that they work best if there are 10 business owners in each group; that gives everybody time in a three-hour meeting to be heard and to participate.
When it’s filled we start another group, usually in a different location. A closer location benefits a different set of participants, plus we need different facilities. We have met at the Northern R.I. Chamber, New England Tech., Lincoln, East Greenwich and the chamber of South Kingstown.

PBN: How does the mastermind team work?
NASH: The concept is very simple. People sit around a table and help each other grow their business. It’s like having your own board of directors. It doesn’t help one person grow, it helps everybody grow. Someone brings up a problem they are having and all of us talk about it and try to help. Then we talk to the next person and continue all around the table. It’s all confidential, and there are a lot of conversations that go on between the meetings.
In this day and age you cannot successfully run a business as a rugged individualist. It takes a group. In small business you can’t always afford consultants. The owners in the team get together and they are a very diverse group. We may be very different but we all have the same problems. I think about what I do all day long, but I miss so much because when you’re inside the bottle, you can’t read the label. Groups make better decisions than individuals because they look at so many different angles.
You’ve got to walk in the door with the understanding that you’re there to help other people.

PBN: How many groups are there now?
NASH: We have six groups now and we’re starting on our seventh. Another one is planned for September in East Providence. As long as there is a demand, and as long as we have facilitators, we’ll continue. In Rhode Island, there are [more than] 6,000 new corporations starting each year.

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PBN: What’s going on at the R.I. Small Business Recovery Program?
NASH: We trained more than 2,400 people last year, and this year we expect about 3,000 to 3,500 people. There is a great demand for what we do and so far we have been very fortunate. We have about 30 “teachers” who are all volunteers, established and well-known experts in the private sector. Most of the events are held at the Centerville Commons Office Park in Warwick, and we do it all on a budget of $20,000. Much of that money is from corporate sponsorship.

PBN: What classes are you finding successful?
NASH: There is one called “speed mentoring” where we get some of the best, top-notch professionals in businesses who act as mentors, and eight business owners. It works like speed-dating, where if you are a business owner with a question you can not only get eight answers, but eight great answers. It’s been very successful. What I am grateful for is that we are always asking for volunteers from business, and nobody says ‘no’, they are all willing to do it.

PBN: How are you able to remain effective?
NASH: We have been collaborating with several chambers of commerce who have helped us get the word out. We send a notice out listing the month’s activities and they forward that to their membership and constituents … and that has become extremely successful. It’s a collaboration and that’s the only way to be successful. … As far as businesses are concerned, we ask that they tell the story. If you know someone that is about to start owning a business, tell them there is help out there.
And it’s not only us: it’s the Service Corps of Retired Executives. They do a fantastic job, and there’s the Small Business Administration and a whole group of others.
Another thing I have started is to take this on the road to different cities and towns across the state. … All we ask those communities to do is to notify all the businesses that these seminars are coming.

PBN: Why do your classes run the gamut when it comes to experience?
NASH: We try to cover everything, from someone starting their first business to classes that require participants to be a businessperson. But one of the most important things I want to stress is that everything we do is for free, except just a few classes like the mentoring. [For the latter] there is a fee of a mere $11 per month to participate and we ask for a one-year commitment.

PBN: Why are you doing this at age 68, after 21 years at the Chamber?
NASH: This is the wonderful part of retirement. You can do these things that you couldn’t do when the mortgage needed to be paid, the kids needed to be sent to college, those types of things. This is why I’m having a ball in life. •

INTERVIEW
David E. Nash
POSITION: founder, Rhode Island Small Business Recovery Program
BACKGROUND: Nash is a retired 21-year veteran of the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, where he served as its president and CEO.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in marketing, Roger Williams Junior College, 1964
FIRST JOB: Summer job making popsicles at Warwick Ice Cream
RESIDENCE: Coventry
AGE: 68

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