Services Cooperative Association is a unique organization founded by a group of small business men and women who recognized the value in fostering individual initiative in the free enterprise system at grass roots levels of emerging enterprises.
Created from research by the Houston Chamber of Commerce - Small Business Council from 1980 to 1982, the cooperative held its first meeting on March 15, 1983, with 14 companies represented. Today, more than 42,200 companies have attended SCA business building programs, more than 28,000 referrals for new business items have been generated, multiple SCA Chapters have operated throughout Houston and the cooperative has received national and international acclaim for its accomplishments in economic development and entrepreneurship education.
The methodology of the
co-op is to teach entrepreneurship in a synergistic environment, conducive to the growth
of emerging enterprises, where early stage entrepreneurs have the opportunity to interact
with owners of established companies for a demonstration of the ability to be
self-sufficient and self-reliant common to all successful enterprise development projects
while utilizing SCA's Rapid
Growth System* to supply the components necessary for accelerated business
growth, including: Market Expansion, Business Development, Entre/Intrapreneurial Education
and Professional Growth.
What you learn in 6 months with SCA will last a lifetime for your business.
SCA was the first to recognize the importance of small business
development, entrepreneurship education and emerging business incubation and dedicated its
efforts to providing these vital services independent of the whims of public funding.
SCA sponsored the first small business incubator in Houston, which became the oldest in Texas, and the first Womens Business Center in the nation, totally without grants or tax dollars.
That Houston now has more business incubators, more universities teaching entrepreneurship, more business networking groups and more business starts - the last 4 years running - than any other city in the United States, is a tribute to SCA's vision.
We believe: "To teach entrepreneurship, you must be able to do it." We challenge those small business development centers still feeding at the public trough to get serious about operating in a free enterprise system that allows competition to stimulate innovation, accept risk, use successful business owners as counselors - workshop - seminar leaders, become self-sufficient and stop using tax subsidies to perpetuate inefficiency and stagnation in their bureaucracies.
*Service Mark of Services Cooperative Association
© 2003 Services Cooperative Association.
All rights reserved.