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3/16/2015 StarTribune- Print Page <br />"It's OK at any level to ask for help," she said. "No question is too small." <br />City officials can refer calls they get from people asking about business plans or bank financing to Open to Business, said <br />Rob Smolund, the program's manager and a business adviser. <br />"If the cities were to hire someone, it would be so expensive," Smolund said. "We figured out where the economies of scale <br />let us create a program ... the cities will buy into with county support. Now they can feature it and own it as a program to <br />serve their residents and businesses and yet we provide all the work." <br />Open to Business offers more than any individual city in the county could offer, said David Olson, Lakeville's community and <br />economic development director. <br />"They provide access to capital, they provide access to technical services, they have relationships with lenders, none of which <br />the city is set up to do," Olson said. <br />Bruce Nordquist, Apple Valley's community development director, said Open to Business can even help businesses in the <br />very beginning stages. <br />"The Minnesota-based Fortune 500 corporations, and we have several of them, many of them started in a garage or in a <br />small facility and now are corporate leaders in the Twin Cities," he said "We've had this notion of, 'Where is the next one, <br />who might it be?' I think we want to foster an environment for allowing that to occur." <br />Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Woodbury. His e-mail is todd_nelson @mac.com. <br />© 2015 Star Tribune <br />http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=296285911 2/2 <br />