This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on November 4th, 2021. Last year’s column – “Holidays with a twist” – noted that the 2020 holiday season was challenged by pandemic restrictions, but it highlighted ways we could still make the most of Alexandria’s… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on September 2nd, 2021. The pandemic has upended our lives for 19 months, but it’s taught us some worthwhile lessons to reflect on. We’ve been reminded of essential business operations principles. We now practice self-care. We’ve… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on March 4, 2021. Going into the pandemic was chaotic and unpredictable and we had to make consequential decisions on the fly. The road ahead certainly has its share of unpredictability, but the rollout of vaccines… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on August 6, 2020. We endured the shock and awe at the initial pandemic declaration. Strange new habits of social distancing, shutdowns and face masks became patters we adopted in record time.  We then started to… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on July 2, 2020. We’re making our way through extraordinary times. The circumstances we’ve struggled with for months now have no precedent. Decision-makers at all levels have no off-the-shelf solutions to select from.  The critical choices… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on June 4, 2020. We’ve been in this strange reality so long that we might begin to wonder what efforts will be required to get us back to a semblance of our earlier routines. The prognosticators… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on April 2, 2020. As a breather from our anxiety with all the unknowns and frustrations over changes to our personal and work patterns, I thought it might add perspective if we paused a moment to… Read more »

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced on March 12th that it will provide Disaster Loan assistance to small businesses impacted by Coronavirus (COVID-19). Alexandria SBDC will assist Alexandria businesses with their application processes when those loans are made available. The Disaster Declaration for businesses in our area has not been made yet so we… Read more »

This post is written by Bill Reagan, Executive Director of the SBDC and first appeared in the Alexandria Times on March 5, 2020. While we’re still learning about COVID-19 (Coronavirus), its potential impacts are predominating the media. When we see the effects overseas and outbreaks in the US, we have good reason to become concerned… Read more »

In the last few years we have seen several news accounts of major data breaches involving big businesses, nonprofit organizations, banking institutions, and even government entities.  While this is a major issue for these organizations, they generally have the expertise and means to fix the issue and ensure that the breach does not continue.  But… Read more »