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Below is a letter from an experienced venture capitalist, Al Lorenz, who lives in the Lake Chelan area.  He is trying to form a Venture Capital Club in our region.  Access to capital is one of the key barriers to business creation and expansion.  Having a local venture capital group will help fill this gap and help us “grow our own” jobs within the region.  The key is getting 20 members to establish the club.  If you or someone you know is interested, please contact Al directly.

Greetings,

 I’ve been chatting with folks for awhile that we could do more to attract businesses to North Central Washington.  As you know, our quality of life can be a huge draw to attract companies to the area.  The easiest companies to attract to the area are startups, who aren’t as established in a given area. 

But, one of the things that is missing is that we don’t have an active community of angel investors to help support promising companies.  Since that is not something that government entities can, or should be, doing it needs to come from the private sector.

When I lived on the other side of the mountains, I was active in the Puget Sound Venture Club.  With the help of the founder of that club, I am working to see if I can get a group of interested investors to form an angel investment group in North Central Washington. If done correctly, a group like this can provide a tremendous boost to business development in the area.  Some of the other groups in the Seattle area include:  Alliance of Angels and the Zino Society.

I would need a minimum of 20 members to form a viable group.  The maximum is also limited to 35 members at this point.  I want to personally call and invite potential members to an organizational meeting in early December so we can start receiving pitches from startups early next year.  From this group I would like to ask for some names and phone numbers of potential members that I can invite.  I already have a list started, but if each of you could send me three to five names of good potential members, we could have an angel investment club in North Central Washington.

Here is a link to the beginning web site of the North Central Washington Venture Club: http://www.ncwventureclub.org/

Sponsorships also help defray the costs of running a club.  On the other side of the hills, banks, attorneys and financial firms are all common sponsors.  Please let me know your due dates for requests for funding and I will get a proposal into your organizations, if appropriate (chambers, port, GWATA) as well.  When chatting with folks at possible business sponsors, please feel free to put in a good word about potentially sponsoring this effort.  Also, please forward this to others you think should be aware of it.

Thank you for looking at this.  It could become a wonderful asset to our area.

NCW Venture Club

Al Lorenz
509-630-6769
877-822-3271 fax

SeaPort Airlines will begin serving Pangborn Memorial Airport with service to Yakima and Portland on March 1.  Here is an earlier post announcing the new service:  http://www.wenatchee.org/the-chamber-guy-blog/seaport-airlines-to-serve-pangborn/

SeaPort has launched a special four-day fare sale network-wide that ends midnight January 30th.  Fares range from $19 to $89 for travel from March 1 through May 15, 2012 and are subject to availability.  Here is your chance to try out the new service to Portland at the  great price of $49 one way!

To take advantage of the sale, go to www.SeaPortAirlines.com or call 888-573-2767 and use the promo code SPRING.

The start of a new year is always a time to reflect on the year past, look forward to the year ahead, and resolve to make a few changes.  If one of your goals for 2012 is to get more organized, Lemongrass Natural Foods and Numerica Credit Union are sponsoring a great way to get started.

On January 19th from 4 to 5 p.m., a truck will be at the Lemongrass parking lot, 1052 Springwater Street in Wenatchee, to shred your old records.  Let’s face it, the paperless office has yet to arrive so disposal of old records that may have important financial data, social security numbers or other personal information of employees and customers, or other private data, can be challenge.  This opportunity solves that problem, and at no or a very reasonable cost.

If you are a Numerica member, their is no cost.  If not, the rates are very affordable.  You can contact Natalie at Lemongrass for more information.

Wenatchee HS and Local Businesses hold Distracted Driving Campaign for Teens!

The Wenatchee Police Department, High School staff, local Farmers Insurance agents and Precision Collision Auto Body recently held this year’s distracted driving safety campaign at Wenatchee High School. 18% of distraction related fatalities in America are cell phone related as reported on the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s web site. When students arrived at school on Tuesday January 10^th, they saw a new Ford F150 that had recently Read More »

This morning Seaport Airlines announced it will start service on March 1 from Pangborn Airport to Yakima and Portland.  Service will include three round trips each weekday and one weekend round trip.  This is great news for our Valley, central Washington, and Pangborn Memorial Airport. 

Before I go any further, time for full disclosure.  In addition to my job as Chamber Director, I am an elected Chelan County Port Commissioner (since December 2006).  The Port of Chelan County jointly owns and operates Pangborn Memorial Airport with the Port of Douglas County.  One of my primary responsibilities as a Commissioner is Pangborn airport.  I am very familiar with Pangborn and the impacts of this news. but shouldn’t be considered totally disinterested.

Let me start at the beginning of the Chamber’s support of Pangborn (at least since I have been Director).  In October of 2004 a great conference Read More »