After seven months in control, the new management of the local Small Business Development Center program has gotten off to a rocky start. Officials running the Small Business Administration program which helps small business owners and entrepreneurs, however, say they are overcoming the hurdles they have encountered. Since January, the program which is now being administered by lead agency Long Beach City College and operated locally by College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, has been through two interim directors at the local office and has served only 300 businesses in the greater-Valley area. The program’s goal was to serve 1,600 businesses by the end of the year, according to Shenui Sloan, director of the Small Business Development Center at Long Beach City College. “There’s a lot of confusion with the changing of lead centers,” Sloan said. “A lot of people don’t realize how the program works and the area serviced changed.” Sloan said that with Long Beach just taking over the program it must create a new network of providers and educate the public where resources are available. “I think the first year is a gearing up year as we establish our presence and put our programs in place,” said Dena Maloney, dean of the economic development division at College of the Canyons. The college was close to picking a permanent director for the center and the school’s board is expected to give approval in mid-August, Maloney said. While the school had hoped to have a full-time director already in place, it wanted to bring on board someone experienced in economic development and working with small businesses, Maloney said. College of the Canyons became the host locally following the awarding of a grant in January to Long Beach City College as the new lead agency for the program in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, a 2,000-square-mile area. The College of the Canyons center serves the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys The SBDC program is the Small Business Administration’s largest counseling and training network with locations in every U.S. state and territory. The lead SBDC institution holds the contract with the SBA and administers and operates the area’s SBDC program. California State University, Northridge, had been the lead center for the program beginning in July 2003 and when it decided to opt out of that role, the Valley Economic Development Center put in a bid as a replacement. The VEDC was the lead agency through December 2005 when its contract was not renewed. This forced the closure of small business development center offices in Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Glendale, South Los Angeles and Santa Monica, resulting in up to 10 people being laid off. One challenge facing College of Canyons as it ramps up its service is that it has had to establish a network from scratch where the VEDC already had connections in place, Sloan said. Former interim director Mike Haviland whose last day was Aug. 4 made the rounds of chambers from the West Valley and met with representatives from area community colleges and organizations such as the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, Sloan said. Pierce College was an early supporter of the program with its assistance to obtain space at the Build WorkSource building in Northridge for seminars and counseling. Pierce, however, receives no funding to be part of the SBDC and made that gesture as a way “of being nice,” said Judith Trester, director of workforce development at Pierce. The school continues to provide referrals for SBDC services but its involvement ends there, Trester said. “We don’t follow up on the referrals,” Trester said. “That is their job. One of those contacting the center was Jimmy Anderson, who opened ExpressPrint in Santa Clarita two months ago. A visit to the SBA website led the Air Force veteran to the Small Business Development Center for help in refining his business plan and helping to organize it for growth in the next three to five years. “They’ve helped me organize and plan my business to the point where I am going to be one of the first to hire on employees with the SBDC’s help,” Anderson said.