History

The Entrepreneurship Council is a grass-roots education and advocacy group for entrepreneurs. It has worked in creative partnership with other organizations with overlapping interests, notably the Mixson Business Center, Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce, City of Dothan, Wallace Community College, and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Innovation at Troy University. The organization began in 2010 as the Entrepreneurship Group, one of several focus groups of the annual Economic Summit on Jobs, spearheaded by Dothan Mayor Mike Schmitz. Since 2014, the Entrepreneurship Council has operated autonomously, regularly coordinating entrepreneurial education and hosting networking events in the community.

In 2013, we adopted the slogan “Promoting the Creative Spirit.” In 2014, we agreed on our mission: “To welcome and promote entrepreneurship in the community by bringing together valuable resources, professional support, and exposure.”

We have since mainly focused on the educational facet of our mission, which is to promote the creative spirit, primarily through a series of seminars and networking events in the Tri-State area, among those people who wish to start and grow businesses. Through our activities, we hope to build awareness of what resources are available in our area, foster an entrepreneurial ethos among our participants, and provide an entrepreneurially friendly community structure.

Our logo is the design of our long-standing leader and Chair of the Entrepreneurship Council, Mr. Mackroyce Corbitt, of Computer Printing Etc. The design is the letter “C,” with the upper segment of another letter “C” above it, separated by a narrow space, to create the illusion of the letter “E,” while enclosing the entire emblem in a circle. The “E” and “C” are self-explanatory, meaning “Entrepreneurship Council.” The circle, as originally explained by Mr. Corbitt, intends to represent both cyclicality and infinity.

Indeed, entrepreneurship is both cyclical and infinite. As enunciated by the eminent economist Dr. Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, entrepreneurship is creative destruction. When entrepreneurs create new ideas, they destroy old ideas. Yet every new idea eventually becomes an old one, hence the cyclical nature of the phenomenon. Meanwhile, the creative process is infinite. No amount of creativity today can ever drown out the creative potential of tomorrow. That is the essence of the entrepreneurial ethos and the driving force behind our movement.

Leaders Create Opportunities

We invite you to join our group. We are looking for leaders in the community who would like to see business start and grown in the Tri-State Area through the educating and supporting of businesses within our communities. In developing and fostering the growth of businesses in our community you will help create jobs and enrich our economy as a whole.

Meetings are usually held once a month and we hold one seminar a month. Meetings and seminars usually start after 5 p.m. in the evenings during the week. If you have questions are would like to join, feel free to contact us at entrepreneurshipcouncil@gmail.com or fill out our contact form. We would love to have you as a member.