-: My name is Mary Miller,
and for 27 years of my career,
I was the owner of a software development company,
actually located here in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Recently, last year I sold my company
and currently, I am directing an accelerator program
for small business.
I began a group at Virginia Tech called
Interactive Design and Development
and we were doing laser disc development.
Eventually, I was given the opportunity
to spin my company out of the university
and start my company, move it into the research part,
and Virginia Tech became one of my customers.
So I actually took my group, went private
and started, at that time, doing multi-media development
for corporations and universities.
And I was extremely fortunate
as to picking up some really large corporations
like Dole Food Company, Dow Chemical Company,
Citi Bank, and people like that.
As the director of the accelerator program
I managed the cohort, which is, in my case currently,
six companies, each of the companies has a mentor
that works directly with them on a weekly basis.
I'm kind of, the director of the entire program,
so we bring together educational resources,
working with the mentors, and then I meet
one one one with the individual companies
from time to time, working through the problems
that they can be running into.
The problems can be anything from
how do you find or identify
the correct kind of a programmer,
how do you grow correctly, when is it time to grow,
what kind of a bank, how do I get a loan,
these kind of things that, in running a company
for 27 years, I have experienced across all those.
So I bring in individuals that I trust
in the community to present to these companies
to give them kind of the basic information they need
and the more rapid succession,
and not waiting, and some of the things I know
that they're going to need.
Some of these bright, young companies
don't really have a relationship with a good lawyer yet,
and they're gonna need that.
They're gonna need a relationship with a bank
before they need to borrow money.
Just being calm about it, I can work with these companies
to tell them it's okay, let's take these steps.