Your Business & Marcellus Shale

Program Description

The ‘Your Business & Marcellus Shale” program is a series of five weekly early morning webinars for local business development providers, designed to provide information on assisting entrepreneurs understand the business opportunities arising from development of Marcellus Shale, learn how other businesses are responding, and improve their business planning skills so they can evaluate and implement possible new business ventures.    

The program will be delivered in partnership with local business development providers from across the Commonwealth, increasing their own awareness of the opportunities in Marcellus Shale, and helping them provide education and training about this important issue directly to their local clientele. Community partners hosting the series will be the local ‘face’ of the program, so the program can build upon their existing relationships with local entrepreneurs and businesses.

Why Marcellus Shale and Local Business Development?

Marcellus Shale has the potential to fundamentally transform many of Pennsylvania’s communities. The estimated value of recoverable natural gas in the state exceeds $1.2 trillion, a number significantly larger than the current size of the Commonwealth’s economy. This influx of dollars within the Commonwealth is creating significant business opportunities directly with the natural gas and service companies, with supporting businesses, and indirectly through worker spending and royalty income. Research on the impact of Barnett Shale in Texas, for example, indicates that natural gas development there has created 111,000 jobs, with the impacts occurring across all sectors of the economy.

Much of the economic development impact arising from Marcellus depends critically upon whether Pennsylvania businesses are able to procure business associated with Marcellus.  Local businesses and entrepreneurs in Pennsylvania need to understand the opportunities and challenges arising from Marcellus Shale, and how they can explore and take advantage of these opportunities. Local communities and Main Streets need to understand the economic development implications of Marcellus, and what they can do to help their businesses compete.

How Delivered:

The series will be delivered from one statewide location, with participants gathered at local sites hosted by partnering local business development and business service providers. Each session will be 90 minutes long, including 60 minutes of presentation and questions with the ‘central location’ speaker and then 30 minutes of local discussion facilitated by the local host. The live program will only be available at hosted sites through local partnering organizations. Each session will be recorded so it can be viewed later.

Curriculum:

The curriculum includes an overview of Marcellus Shale and related business activity, how to identify business opportunities, successful examples of how businesses have responded, how to evaluate the business opportunities, funding options, and community roles.  The program will be taught by a team of experts, including business development trainers, university faculty, natural gas industry representatives, businesspeople who are successfully working with the gas industry, and others.   

Date	Session Topic
October 14,  8:00 – 9:30 am	The Economic Implications of Marcellus Shale
October 21,  8:00 – 9:30 am	Identifying local business opportunities, and working with the industry
October 28,  8:00 – 9:30 am	Successful Examples of Business Opportunities
November 4,  8:00 – 9:30 am	Small Business Planning to Marcellus Shale
November 10*,  8:00 – 9:30 am	Working Together with Others for Success

*note the Tuesday date due to Veteran's Day

Logistics:

Local site hosts will bebriefed each week prior to the scheduled webinar via a conference call and/or email overview and a supporting website, which will include additional resources, links to the prior sessions, discussion questions, and contact information for the speakers in case there are follow up questions.

Advertising and registration for the program will be done by local partners, using a standard template that partners will adapt for their site.  After August 24 ^th, we will have an overall program flier and website that lists all local partners and sites, and refers interested participants to those local partners to register.

Local facility arrangements are the responsibility of each local partner.  This may be their own office,  a restaurant meeting space, or other location.

Site requirements: high speed internet access (wired is strongly preferable over wireless), computer, LCD projector, screen, and audio speakers.

Local partners can charge a registration fee to cover their expenses.

To Become a Partnering Organization:

We are actively seeking local partners to co-deliver this program, and are particularly looking for local business training and service providers, economic development agencies, and downtown revitalization organizations.

The cost to be a local partner to offer the full series is $120 per site. 

Sign up by August 24 ^th by filling out this form and mailing it to:

“Your Business & Marcellus Shale”
c/o Rachel Perry
305 Armsby
University Park, PA 16802

Where to Learn More:

To learn more about Marcellus Shale, see Penn State Cooperative Extension’s  Marcellus website: www.naturalgas.psu.edu

To learn more about this ‘Your Business  & Marcellus Shale’ program, contact Tim Kelsey, (814) 865-9542 or tkelsey@psu.edu

Or attend one of our two introductory webinars for potential local partners, which are intended to help you better understand the opportunities arising from Marcellus, and whether you want to be a local host for this business development series. 

Session I:   August 10, 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Session II:  August 14, 11:00 am – noon

Register here to participate in one of the introductory webinars, so you can learn more about how to offer this program in your own community”