Three area entrepreneurs have begun a course on starting a business offered through the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, and taught by Joe Syslo of Mathews.
Curtis Smith, deputy director of MPPDC, welcomed the students at their first class and said the district is taking on projects of economic importance such as reversing the trend of “out commuting” where residents travel out of their locality for work.
The class meets Thursday evenings for seven weeks. The intention is for each participant to complete a customized business plan to help launch or grow their business, Smith said. In addition, upon completion he said participants would be encouraged to seek available funding opportunities from MPPDC to support their businesses.
Syslo is chairman of Mathews County’s Economic Development Authority and has been a business professor at Rappahannock Community College for more than 20 years. He and other RCC professors David Alga, Bob Leibowitz and Tom Davidson, and lawyer Fred...