RIEDC Financing Program to Create 90 New Jobs in Rhode Island
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July 30, 2008 | Print this page | Share This |
Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation program leverages federal dollars to grow new jobs across the state
The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation’s Small Business Loan Fund (SBLF) has provided expansion capital loans totaling $1.75 million, enabling four Rhode Island businesses to create more than 90 new jobs.
The four recipients of these loans are:
- Linear Title and Closing, Ltd., a Middletown-based company, primarily provides title review and title insurance through their innovative software enhancement technology. This new software, developed by the company, streamlines the process for obtaining title review and title insurance. Linear Title and Closing has received $250,000 from SBLF.
- Newport’s LogicBay Corporation is dedicated to helping manufacturers design, implement and manage programs for their distribution partners through the use of the company’s web-based proprietary Performance Center technology. LogicBay is dedicated to dramatically increasing sales productivity and service quality and improving customer satisfaction throughout their clients’ distribution channel — by helping design, implement and manage development programs for clients’ channel partners. SBLF has provided LogicBay with a $250,000 loan.
- CleanBrands, an East Providence company that designs and distributes allergy proof bedding products to regional and national retailers, has received a $500,000 loan from the SBLF. A 2007 Providence Business News Innovation Award winner, CleanBrands’ founder and CEO Gary Goldberg created the MicronOne fabric technology, the first fabric that's able to block even the tiniest micro-toxins which creates a breathable barrier, after his son began suffering from nighttime breathing issues due to the harmful micro-toxins, allergens and dust mites that live inside everyone's mattress and pillows.
- InQuest Technologies, currently headquartered in Southborough, Mass., will relocate its software and web-based solutions company to Rhode Island in fall 2008. SBLF loaned InQuest $750,000 to accelerate their growth in Rhode Island.
The SBLF is funded through the U.S. Economic Development Agency. Rhode Island taxpayers assume no liability should loans not be handled as agreed.
“Tightening credit markets and turbulent economic conditions like those we now face make the Small Business Loan Fund an especially valuable tool in our effort to support small business in Rhode Island and create jobs," said Governor Donald L. Carcieri. “We are very pleased that the program proved to be a good fit for these four companies.”
Improving Rhode Island’s financing programs is central to RIEDC’s Economic Growth Plan, which seeks to increase the percentage of jobs in Rhode Island that pay above the national average wage of $42,000 from 40 to 60 percent by 2017. Other priorities include a regional attraction campaign to promote new company relocation and expansion, a partnership to leverage property made available through the I-195 relocation, programs that strengthen the state’s workforce development platform, an effort to increase the state’s research and development capacity and expansion of programs that support the state’s small businesses.
“We are committed to fully leveraging every tool we have in our arsenal to help Rhode Island companies grow and create jobs. Putting more capital into the market is one way that we can help companies that are struggling with current conditions,” said RIEDC Executive Director Saul Kaplan. “The RIEDC finance team has done a good job using existing tools to help growth companies create jobs and in parallel put forth new ideas for how we can modernize our programs to optimally address the steps Rhode Island needs to take to grow innovation economy that produces higher wage jobs at all wage levels.”
“The RIEDC’s Small Business Loan Fund program was extremely helpful to our company as we sought to expand our operations in a short window of time,” said Nicholas Liuzza, Jr., President, Linear Title and Closing. “Linear is a progressive real estate services provider that offers title enclosing services in all 50 states. As a result of successfully implementing topical industry tools, we will be aggressively growing our company to support our increased volume of business.”
“These funds are a critical component of our expansion efforts,” said John Panaccione, CEO, LogicBay. “We will be using these funds to immediately hire additional engineering staff. Also, we will be ramping up our sales and marketing programs to expand our operations in leveraging our positive results to date.”
“Since we were founded in 2006, our company has experienced tremendous growth and has leveraged the strength of our consumer products to establish strategic partnerships with major retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and Bed Bath and Beyond,” said Gary Goldberg, Founder and President, CleanBrands. “The next phase of our employee growth will help us meet these, and future demands, as we continue extend our reach in the consumer markets.”
Other Rhode Island-based SBLF loan recipients in the last 12 months include American Partners, Inc. (Pawtucket), Concordia Manufacturing (Warwick), CoreSmart Interactive, LLC (Providence), Court Drive LLC, Green Grocer (Portsmouth), Jungle Jim Preschool (Warwick), KC Enterprises LLC (North Kingstown), Malco Saw Co., Inc (Cranston), New England Syrup Co., Inc. (Smithfield), PSP LLC (Smithfield), and E.B. Thomsen Inc. (East Providence).
