History of the Bucknell SBDC
During 1977, the Department of Community Affairs of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania became aware of the plans of the United States Small Business Administration to fund the establishment of Small Business Development Centers in colleges located in several states.
Mr. Thomas Lynott of the Department of Community Affairs was charged with the responsibility for visiting a group of private colleges within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to describe the plans of the Small Business Administration and to encourage them to participate in several meetings to prepare a proposal for submission to the Small Business Administration by the Governor of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Lynott came to Bucknell and met with Dr. Wendell Smith, Provost, to see if Bucknell would be interested in participating. Dr. Smith became interested in the project and met with Charles H. Coder, Professor of Mechanical Engineering to see if he would be interested in managing a Small Business Development Center at Bucknell. Professor Coder was selected for this assignment because of his experience in serving as a consultant for local companies and his success in receiving numerous grants from the National Science Foundation.
Professor Coder agreed to serve as a part time Director of the proposed Bucknell Small Business Development Center (SBDC). He attended many planning meetings involving representatives from other private colleges such as Lehigh, Wilkes, Scranton, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, Drexel, and Gannon. Finally, this group elected the University of Pennsylvania to serve as the lead school. Ms. Susan Gamber was selected by Penn to serve as the Director of the Pennsylvania SBDCs Consortium. The group then prepared a proposal to be signed by the Governor and submitted to the Small Business Administration.
Each member of the consortium was then invited by the Department of Community Affairs to submit a proposal requesting $5000 as money to cover the costs for organizing each SBDC. Professor Coder prepared the Bucknell proposal, and $5000 was awarded in 1978, with an additional $5000 awarded in 1979.
Early in the 1980's, Pennsylvania commenced receiving grants from the SBA to be administered by the University of Pennsylvania. The Department of Community Affairs awarded small matching grants to Penn. In turn, each college in the consortium submitted proposals to Penn and received contracts for each coming year from the SBA and the state via Penn.
The state money during the early 1980's was never enough to match the SBA money which created a problem for many of the consortium colleges. During the middle of the 1980's, the state inaugurated the Ben Franklin Partnership Program to help the large number of technology oriented companies. This was good for Bucknell since we had already established a reputation for providing engineering help to a large number of clients who were involved with manufacturing. So, the Bucknell SBDC started to submit proposals to the Ben Franklin Partnership Program which resulted in numerous grants to help manufacturers and proposed manufacturers. Most of this work was accomplished by Bucknell engineering faculty members and students.
The Ben Franklin grant money became available as matching money for the SBA funds so that for several years the Bucknell SBDC was able to contribute to other SBDC's throughout the Commonwealth to assure that all of the SBA money for the Commonwealth was matched. Before long, the money from the state was increased so that the matching money problem was solved for all SBDC's. Soon Mr. Greg Higgins replaced Susan Gamber as State Director.
Bucknell's SBDC continued to help small technology oriented companies in ten counties. In the early 1990's it established the "Product Development Center", with the added responsibility of providing direct engineering assistance to small manufacturing clients throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
By Professor Charles H. Coder, May 29, 2003
Before retiring in 1998, Professor Coder and the Bucknell SBDC received five awards:
- The General Tasker Bliss medal was awarded to Professor Coder by the Society of American Military Engineers for the outstanding Engineering Professor of the year for 1987.
- The Outstanding SBDC was awarded to the Bucknell SBDC by the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeast Pennsylvania.
- The Outstanding SBDC in Eastern Pennsylvania award was provided by the United States Small Business Administration.
- The SBDC award for the outstanding consortium unit for activities that integrated the client helps with the overall educational program of the host college. This award was provided by the SBDC State Director.
- Professor Coder was presented with the Outstanding Engineer award of the year by the Central Pennsylvania Sector of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
After retiring, Professor Coder was honored in May of 2003 for his SBDC work at a dinner attended by faculty members, SBDC personnel, members of Professor Coder's family, and Bucknell Administrators. The dinner was supported by Dr. Edward F. Staiano, a student and colleague of Professor Coder's in the late 1950's and member of the Board of Trustees of Bucknell University. Dr. Staiano also presented two plaques naming Professor Coder as the Founder and Director of the Bucknell SBDC, which are permanently mounted at the SBDC offices. Bucknell's Administration agreed to have these plaques displayed due to a financial gift made by Dr. Staiano for the new Breakiron engineering building.
