March 2006
Affordable Housing Assistance is Available for Your Employees.  The Pinellas County Housing Finance Authority offers a variety of programs to help renters, homeowners and home buyers.  Programs include: community and public rental housing, grants to fund home improvements for disabled persons, low-rate loans for home repairs, first-time homebuyer assistance, and help for repairs to rental property owners.  Additionally, special programs are available for health care workers, teachers, police officers, and firefighters.  Contact Frances Pheeny, Senior Program Administrator, at fpheeny@pinellascounty.org or (727) 464-8253 for more information.

March is Register at Work Month.  Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark, along with the 66 other Florida elections supervisors, has designated March as Register at Work Month.  Clark’s office is looking for major employers in Pinellas County to provide employees with on-site voter registration, election materials and demonstrations on the touch screen voting machines. There is no cost to businesses for these services or materials.  Visit www.votepinellas.com, or call the Supervisor of Elections office at (727) 464-6108 for additional information.

Export Sales Mission to Guatemala, May 14-17.  Enterprise Florida is seeking Florida manufacturers, distributors, exporters and service companies for this upcoming mission to Guatemala City.  Limited to fifteen participants, the program includes two days of one-on-one personalized business appointments with Guatemalan companies, an Ambassador’s networking cocktail reception, a U.S. Commercial Service country briefing and group negotiated hotel and airfare rates.  Sponsorship opportunities are available.  Contact Julie Balzano at jbalzano@eflorida.com or (305) 569-2650 for more information.

2006 Florida SBIR/STTR Life Sciences and Advanced Technology Conference Series Begins in Tampa March 27-28.  Sponsored by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs convene at this conference held at the University of South Florida, Tampa campus.  Small businesses, venture capital and angel investors, private and academic researchers, commercial lenders and other business service providers will receive instruction on the preparation of SBIR proposals and assistance on how to identify research and development opportunities in the federal government and at university and federal labs.  For more information, including registration, agenda and sponsorship opportunities, click here or call (813) 905-5810.

Connecting Business and Education: Job-A-Thon²⁰⁰⁶.  Job-A-Thon²⁰⁰⁶ is a partnership between WorkNet Pinellas, Junior Achievement, St. Petersburg College and Pinellas Technical Education Centers to assist high school students to prepare for, obtain and maintain employment.  Similar to a telethon, the Job-A-Thon is a campaign that will target local businesses and allow them to “pledge” jobs for qualified high school students.  Job placements will begin May 22 and continue through June 30, with the possibility of full-time employment thereafter for students who demonstrate motivation and successful work habits.  If your business is interested in pledging jobs, please contact Garry Burlingame at (727) 791-5835.

Grow Your Exports to Europe.  Are you selling to Italy, Croatia and Greece?  If not, you are invited to join in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Healthcare Trade Mission to Athens, Greece; Zagreb, Croatia; and Bologna, Italy, taking place May 22-27.  Meet with pre-qualified buyers and exhibit in your own booth at Exposanita, Europe’s second largest medical trade show.  Click here for more information, or contact George Martinez at (727) 893-373, or email george.martinez@mail.doc.gov.

March 2006 Pinellas County Success Story
Tax Shelter America - Investing in the Future by Investing in Employees.   Tax Shelter America, headquartered in Clearwater, is growing at record speed.  Explained Ron Giovino, President of Tax Shelter America, "As we expanded our business to provide services for four diverse school districts in a short period of time we knew that adapting to our customers' needs was aparamount to our long-term busines strategy."  Key to Tax Shelter America's planning was training and preparing current employtees for the next steps in their careers.  With the assistance of Pinellas County Economic Development, the company submitted a traiing proposal for Florida's Incumbent Worker Training (IWT) Grant and received over $5,000 for employee training.  Click here to read more of this story.

For mroe information about Tax Shelter America's services, visit www.taxshelteramerica.com.
To learn how IWT grant funding can help your employees succeed, contact Pinellas County Economic Development at www.pced.org, or call (727) 464-7332.