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Angela Pate, the Co-founder of Startup Quest®, an entrepreneurial training program for underemployed and unemployed professionals as well as Sandy Primack, a Startup Quest® graduate and the founder of Primack & Associates joins Enterprise Radio.
Listen to host Eric Dye & guests Angela Pate and Sandy Primack discuss the following:
- Sandy, tell us a little bit about your journey into entrepreneurship.
- Tell us a little bit about your company.
- Angela, What is Startup Quest?
- How did Startup Quest start and where is the program located?
- Sandy, how has your career and life changed since Startup Quest?
- Lastly Angela, how is Startup Quest changing the way we approach workforce development?
Duration: 9:39
Angela Pate is the co-founder of Startup Quest® and a successful entrepreneur. She is the founder and executive chair of OwnForce, a company that connects entrepreneurs to business services and contracted talent to advance their company and simplify their life. Ms. Pate is also the owner of Focused Management Solutions, Inc., a firm with expertise in bringing private enterprise efficiency to complex government processes. Prior to these positions, Ms. Pate gained expertise in 3D structural analysis, leading to her to become a lifelong change agent in industry, government and community development.
The 2011 Startup Quest® pilot program in Gainesville resulted in 88 percent of graduates becoming self-employed or employed with existing businesses and 17 new companies being created. Since this success, Ms. Pate secured an additional $12 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Labor for a Workforce Innovation Fund Grant and Evaluation Study — expanding Startup Quest® into seven additional workforce regions.
Under Focused Management Solutions, Ms. Pate and her team serve as the administrative entity to CareerSource North Central Florida (NCFL), the workforce board for Alachua and Bradford counties. CareerSource NCFL contributes workforce development efforts to a community with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state and a focus on the development of emerging industries in Green Technology, Biotechnology and Health Sciences. Ms. Pate’s efforts have brought more than $24 million dollars of training and supplemental salaries for workforce development to the community since 2005.
Sandy Primack, from Deltona, joined the Sta
rtup Quest® program in 2013 to create a business that utilized his expertise in technology. Startup Quest® is a nationally recognized entrepreneurship-training program that connects teams of qualified participants with successful CEOs and entrepreneurs to learn the steps needed to transform an invention or discovery from our state universities and federal labs into a product for the marketplace.
As primary caretaker of his wife, Joy, Primack needed a flexible career that his past positions at high-tech companies could not offer. Since graduating from the Startup Quest® program, Primack has formed Primack & Associates, negotiated a licensing agreement with the University of South Florida for their patented technology, and is developing software that teaches children to read through phonics (Dynamic Alphabet Phonics Reading Software System).
Primack credits Startup Quest® with giving him the tools to jumpstart his career.
Website: startupquest.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/createmyjob
Twitter: @StartupQuestFL
