Program Description
The ‘Your Business & Marcellus Shale: Voices of Experience” program is a series of four weekly breakfast webinars for small and medium sized local businesses and entrepreneurs, designed to help them understand and take advantage of the business opportunities arising from Marcellus Shale. Each session will highlight successful Pennsylvania local businesses who are adapting to the opportunities, as a way of helping other businesses learn how they can explore and take advantage of these opportunities. Several sessions will include natural gas industry representatives, discussing what they’re looking for from local business partners, and how to establish such business relationships.
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.
This series is a follow up to the successful fall, 2009, business development webinar program which introduced business opportunities. Over 500 local businesses participated in that series at 19 local sites within Pennsylvania and New York. The earlier webinar series is now available for viewing on-line:
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 sand 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.
Business owners and entrepreneurs click here for info on how and where you can attend.
Curriculum:
The curriculum includes in-depth conversations with successful examples of local businesses responding to Marcellus Shale, gas industry needs, and how to establish productive and on-going relationships with natural gas companies. The program will be taught almost exclusively through facilitated panels of local businesspeople who are successfully working with the gas industry, and natural gas industry representatives. The panel facilitators will be business and economic development experts from Penn State Cooperative Extension.
Date |
Session Topic |
January 27, 8:00 – 9:30 am |
Local Business Success Stories and Lessons Learned |
February 3, 8:00 – 9:30 am |
Working with the Industry: Natural Gas Company Perspectives |
February 10, 8:00 – 9:30 am |
Local Business Success Stories, and Lessons Learned |
February 17, 8:00 – 9:30 am |
Partnering; Industry and Local Business Panel |
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 January 6, 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 December 18 th by filling out
this form and mailing it to:
“Your Business & Marcellus Shale: Voices of Experience ”
c/o Rachel Perry
305 Armsby
University Park, PA 16802
Where to Learn More:
To learn more about this ‘Your Business & Marcellus Shale: Voices of Experience’ program, contact Tim Kelsey, (814) 865-9542 or tkelsey@psu.edu.
To learn more about Marcellus Shale, see Penn State Cooperative Extension’s Marcellus website: www.naturalgas.psu.edu.
Or attend an introductory webinar for potential local partners, which is 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. This introductory webinar will be held
Monday, December 14 at 2:00 pm. Register today.
Sponsored By: Penn State Cooperative Extension
Penn State Cooperative Extension has been providing statewide leadership on the opportunities and challenges arising from Marcellus Shale, having conducted our first Marcellus training workshops in 2001. We have been working with state agencies, numerous local governments and local government associations, environmental groups, landowners, workforce development groups, and others.
