Member Spotlight

What is your organization’s mission?

“Idaho SBDC empowers small business success by providing no cost confidential consulting and low cost training to entrepreneurs throughout Idaho… For Environmental Solutions, which is a subset, we provide environmental information relevant to your small business. We are focused on helping businesses comply with air regulations and air quality.

The primary focus for this program (Environmental Solutions) is air based and my position is part of our national network of Small Business Environmental Assistance Providers. It's actually required by the Clean Air Act amendment of 1990, that every state is supposed to provide assistance for small businesses to comply with air regulations.”

Tell us about your organization’s clean transportation journey? Why is this important to you?

“When I began this position, our state director had given me a heads up that we were going to receive funding from the Volkswagen settlement. It would be for electric vehicle charging stations and replacing diesel vehicles with cleaner technologies. It went right along with the clean air goals so we were like ‘let's get in on this’ and so six years ago is when we really started adding the transportation component into the Environmental Solutions program.”

How has the TVCCC helped your organization reach its goals for cleaner transportation?

“When we began planning how we were going to assist small businesses with the VW settlement I went to a Green Transportation Summit and Expo (https://www.gtsummitexpo.com/) conference and I sought out Beth Baird [former Executive Director for the TVCCC]. Beth had been one of the founders of Treasure Valley Clean Cities Coalition. Connecting with Beth at the conference allowed me to learn more about the Treasure Valley Clean Cities Coalition and what they were doing. I started to think ‘how can they help, how can I help them, and how can we work together?

We’ve done a lot of different work on VW settlement, preparing for National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, and just in November worked with TVCCC to have a webinar on the tax implications. That was a complete collaboration between the TVCCC, Clean Tech Alliance, and Environmental Solutions SBDC.”

What advice would you give to an organization or business interested in the transition to cleaner fuels and fueling/charging infrastructure?

“One of the first things that they need to do is to connect to TVCCC because anytime you start something new, it is daunting and challenging and you’ve got to figure out where to start. If you can avoid starting from scratch and making mistakes you are going to move along that path a lot faster. Treasure Valley Clean Cities Coalition has partners that have electrified their fleets or are going to start electrifying their fleets. So they can connect you with similar sized fleets and you can see how they are doing it now and can tell you what missteps to avoid. They can really help along that same path that they’ve already taken.

There’s a lot of good resources for fleets in TVCCC, you’ll find that we have 4 board members that work in the fleet arena.”

What inspires you most about the work you do?

“I have always worked in the environmental field and the environment has definitely always been a passion. I really enjoy helping small businesses. They are not experts in the environment or regulations. They’re experts in their business and they are challenged when it comes to what they need to do to comply with regulations. I’ve had several businesses say ‘we wouldn’t have been able to stay in business. We had no idea how we could do this if we didn’t have the Idaho SBDC’.

You’re helping the environment. You are helping the business.”