Lee Cheever is the Operations Manager at Maine Center for
Entrepreneurial Development. She graduated from the University of Vermont with an engineering degree and did graduate work in Industrial Engineering at Union College in Schenectady, NY. She spent 10 years with GE negotiating defense contracts and managing projects with manufacturing companies in Europe, Mexico and the Far East followed by a few years in Purchasing with GE Plastics. In addition to working for a large corporation, she has worked in her father's family owned business, has run two small companies of her own, and has taught various courses at community colleges. During her six years as a Maine SBDC business counselor, she was one of the original developers of online trainings and has helped more than 200 Maine Entrepreneurs start and grow their own small businesses. She lives in York County with her husband, daughter, dogs and horses.

1. How has your education as an engineer helped you counsel entrepreneurs?

My technical background does help in many situations. In some cases it helps me understand their product or invention faster, or if they have engineering drawings or specifications I know how to read those. Sometimes I can offer suggestions about developing testing or manufacturing processes or technical consultants. Entrepreneurs with any kind of specialty, not just technical ones, often feel more eager to talk to someone who has a similar grounding, who is more apt to "get it."

I took a grant-writing course at one point which got me off on the right track. Then I was fortunate enough to do some work with a professional grant writer. When I got an opportunity to help entrepreneurs with MTI seed grant proposals it allowed me to work on many projects over a relatively short period of time and MTI was extremely open to helping applicants be successful. One of the cool things about grant writing is that its easy to measure how good you are at it. You either win or you don't.

Advice? Understand that every funder has something they want to accomplish with their grant awards. They generally don't want to hand out money for random business building. Read the instructions, figure out how you might fit and then call the funder to discuss your approach. If what you want to do is not what they say they like to fund then move on. Honestly, they want people to send in high quality proposals and they want to help make that happen.

What I enjoy most is being in the midst of positive people with lots of ideas and motivation to move businesses forward. This goes for entrepreneurs starting and managing their businesses, projects I work on with organizations around the state and the people I work with day-to-day.

Entrepreneurs absolutely have to be passionate and committed to their mission. Its what keeps you going when others would give up. They need to be, or learn to be, good at business. They need to be able to sell, both their idea and themselves.

Personally? I want to do good work and use my

favorite tools in my career toolbox. I want to add significant value that moves an entrepreneurial organization forward. Success includes being supportive of my family, too, or the rest doesn't even matter.