New at the Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison!
Team Receives Inaugural Statewide Innovation in Action Award
The Innovation in Action Award recognizes the creation of high-impact, scalable tools that expand access to entrepreneurship education and help fill gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This work includes the creation [and recent re-launch] of First Steps to Starting a Business and the development of The Beginner’s Guide to Financial Projections.
The award also recognizes broader innovation efforts, including student engagement through partnerships such as Badger Consulting and the Tech Exploration Lab, and AI readiness work that supports entrepreneurs and the SBDC network.
Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison Director Role Named the Erica Kauten SBDC Directorship
The role – held by Michelle Somes-Booher – has been renamed, thanks to the support of Erica’s family and friends. As the former WI SBDC State Director, Erica made extraordinary contributions to economic development in Wisconsin and beyond.
Team Receives National SBA 2024 Region V SBDC Excellence and Innovation Center Award, Anne Inman wins Wisconsin SBDC State Star
In 2024, the team received the SBA Excellence and Innovation Award as part of National Small Business Week, and Senior Business Consultant Anne Inman won the Wisconsin SBDC State Star Award.
AI Work with Students
• Working with Tech Exploration Lab student team to create a bot that helps businesses plan in tumultuous times
• Developed AI + BC = Smarter Small Business Consulting: A Badger’s Guide to Unlocking AI training for the Badger Consulting Club
Team Develops Free, On-Demand Financial Projections Course
Our clients often find developing projections to be a daunting process, so we developed this course to teach the concepts and support the work of our Accounting and Projections Clinic.
SBDC AI Work with Entrepreneurs & SBDC Staff
Developed AI 101 and 102 training sessions for entrepreneurs • 25 presentations locally, regionally, and nationally • Attended inaugural AI U Training for SBDC staff, in partnership with Google.org
Awards & Recognition
The team received the 2024 Region V SBDC Excellence and Innovation Center Award, presented by U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman. We are proud to have been selected from 115 centers in the six-state Great Lakes region, and one of 10 regional winners chosen from the nearly 1,000 Centers nationwide. This event was also special because:
- The 2024 SBA Wisconsin Small Business Persons of the Year were Eric Rupert, Sam McDaniel, and Jessica Benish of Fortune Favors Nuts in Cottage Grove. This small company, producing candied pecans that chef Eric Rupert describes as “the pinnacle of my career,” opened in 2018, and began working with the Small Business Development Center at UW-Madison during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to a pivot from retail to online and wholesale sales, supported with SBA PPP and EIDL loans, took off exponentially. The company has grown into a million-dollar business with the help of other SBA loan products. During the awards event, the team recognized their lead SBDC Consultant Amy Bruner Zimmerman and shared that they would not have been able to grow as they have without her support.
- This is the first time an SBA Administrator has attended the Wisconsin Small Business Week event.
- US Representative Mark Pocan shared a personalized recognition letter – shared by Field Representative Morgan Salli – that stated, “As a small business owner myself, I take a lot of pride in seeing so many self-starters in my district see success in their business ventures. It makes me happy to hear that my constituents have a center that they can trust with their dream projects.” The Congressman attended our February 2024 launch event for the Beginner’s Guide to Financial Projections course.
- The nomination received support from the Wisconsin School of Business, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the City of Madison, WI, and WWBIC.
In 2024, Senior Business Consultant and Accounting & Projections Clinic Program Manager Anne Inman was named the Wisconsin SBDC State Star. Chosen by her SBDC peers, Anne Inman established and manages the Center’s Accounting and Projections Clinic and served as the subject-matter expert (SME) and key contributor on the creation of the Beginner’s Guide to Financial Projections.
In addition:
- In 2024, the Center was selected as the Wisconsin SBDC Center of the Year, nominated by the Wisconsin SBDC Network.
- Program Manager Heather Ferguson won an inaugural ASBDC 40 Under 40 Award in 2022.
- Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison Director Michelle Somes-Booher received the State Star Award in 2020.
In recent years, our team has received several forms of recognition from the Wisconsin School of Business:
- In 2024, our team received award recognition for our work from the Wisconsin School of Business.
- In 2021, our team received the COVID Resilience Award.
Statewide SBDC Gathering, June 2026
The Wisconsin SBDC at UW–Madison received the inaugural Innovation in Action Award in recognition of the team’s work creating high-impact, scalable tools that expand access to entrepreneurship education and help fill gaps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This work includes:
- the creation [and recent re-launch] of First Steps to Starting a Business, a free online course that has reached more than 8,300 global users since its initial launch
- The Beginner’s Guide to Financial Projections, a free online course designed to help new business owners estimate future financial outcomes and assess the feasibility of their ideas.
The award also recognizes broader innovation efforts, including student engagement through partnerships such as the Badger Consulting Club and AI readiness work that supports entrepreneurs and the SBDC network.
Stephanie received a Resilience Award in recognition of her perseverance, adaptability, and steady contributions during a period of significant organizational and operational transition.
Stephanie played a key role in helping the Center navigate new and evolving systems, including Workday, CSIS/CERCLE for paid class registration, Zoho CRM and Backstage, and Tableau reporting. Her proactive communication, strong campus partnerships, and solutions-oriented approach helped support the successful delivery of 55 training events serving more than 1,600 participants in 2025.
Other Collaborations & Notables
In 2026, the team re-released First Steps to Starting a Business.
This course, initially released in 2018, has had more than 8,000 users from 49 states and 53 countries worldwide.
The revamped version of the course also includes new videos from entreprenerus who are telling their stories, including Weebleworld, Flavor Temptations, and Develop LLC.
In 2024, the team released the Beginner’s Guide to Financial Projections, a no-cost, interactive, on-demand class designed to help entrepreneurs understand what inputs they need to create financial projections. The course includes: five content chapters, two case study businesses – with full financial projection documents submitted to their lenders – and a customized workbook that helps learners apply the lessons they are learning to their own businesses.
The course received financial support from Federal Community Project Funds, which were approved with bipartisan support. As one of the supporters on the project, Congressman Mark Pocan was able to attend the course launch event.
SBDC Erica Kauten Director Michelle Somes-Booher’s entrepreneurial lesson plan for the Business Model Canvas is one of the most downloaded on the Entrepreneur & Innovation Exchange (EIX) – a free peer-reviewed resource on entrepreneurship and innovation for entrepreneurs, innovators, and those who support them such as investors, advisors, and educators. More than 25,000 people have read the article!
In 2024, our team had two presentations at the national America’s SBDC Conference:
- Always Iterating: Artificial Intelligence 101 for Your SBDC Team, presented by Amy Bruner Zimmerman, Heather Ferguson, and Kody Ova
- From Narrative to Numbers: Empowering Clients in Financial Projections, presented by Heather Ferguson, Anne Inman, and Michelle Somes-Booher
In 2022, Michelle Somes-Booher and Heather Ferguson presented Engage Resources, Enhance Efficiency, and Elevate Your Center with Intrapreneurship at ASBDC.
In Fall 2024, our team was featured in the Wisconsin School of Business’ Update Magazine.
Since fall of 2017, we have served as mentors for the Badger Consulting Club. Badger Consulting students who work with the SBDC have the opportunity to work with real-world small business clients to make recommendations based on: industry research, consumer insights, marketing analytics, and financial viabilities. In 2023, the group consulted with the Babcock Dairy Store.
- Our Badger Consulting (BC) partnership enables our team to provide more in-depth deliverables (often market research) to some of our clients. In the Spring and Winter terms, our team provides projects to the Badger Consulting team. The lead SBDC consultant develops a draft project scope document and guides the consulting team through the process.
- At the end of the project, BC team members present their findings to the client with their recommendations.
In 2023, Michelle served as a mentor for the Packers Mentor-Protégé Program, which pairs emerging Wisconsin businesses (protégés) with established, knowledgeable and committed mentors to help provide exposure, resources and guidance in order to reach the next level of business growth.
Meet our Professional Staff
The Wisconsin SBDC Network is a proud part of the Office of Business & Entrepreneurship within the Universities of Wisconsin. It is funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison is also part of the Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub at UW-Madison.
The Wisconsin SBDC at UW-Madison helps entrepreneurs succeed at any stage. We offer no-cost, confidential consulting and business education across a wide region, primarily serving Dane, Sauk, and Columbia counties. SBDC services are provided in a nondiscriminatory way to all legal residents and citizens in the US.
Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact us at sbdc@bus.wisc.edu or call (608) 263-2221.