By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Bond Science and Technology Incubator at Missouri Western helps give business owners a safe space to find ways to boost their business.
Director of the Bond Incubator Gary Clapp says the incubator provides a space for business operators to be innovative and come up with brand new ideas.
"But it is the innovation stockyard," Clapp says. "And it's a place where innovation gets started, and it's a place where businesses can find that kind of support when you're getting started."
Clapp says a friend of his referred to people coming into the incubator as the eggs, with the building providing that safe space for them to grow.
Clapp says they have people coming in every day to talk to them and work in the workspaces, but what are business owners talking about at the incubator?
"Things that they're working on, or can we sit here for a while, and I've got empty desks upstairs now that we've had some changes in the structure of the incubator," Clapp says. "Those changes including a wide-open office area where people can come sit, rent a desk, or rent an office for a certain period of time."
Clapp says since the COVID pandemic, the incubator has seen a rise in people coming in to work in the space they have to rent out.
But has the mission statement since COVID changed? To that, Clapp says a mission statement should never be set in stone, and should be able to change.
"You know they're kind of what's the current trend, and COVID has caused us to look more closely at what our mission was," Clapp says. "We used to talk an awful lot more about workforce development, and while we really think that's important and from the scientific side workforce development is incredibly important, but they're much more specific today."
Clapp says there are laboratories at the center that grant people more specific training in departments, giving people a chance to learn those specific departments people might be looking for
You can find out more about the incubator at Missouri Western State University HERE.