Exhibitors

Go from Baffled, Isolated, Derailed and Overwhelmed to Focused, Inspired, Connected and Educated. Revitalize your dream of working at what you love, when you visit the sponsors and exhibitors in Arlington Town Hall from 7:30-9:20am. Enjoy coffee and a Continental breakfast, while you visit the Expo and network.

After the Expo, you can reach sponsors and exhibitors all year long using the contact information listed below:

PRESENTING SPONSOR

U.S. Postal Service
25 Dorchester Avenue
Boston, MA 02205
www.usps.com

The U.S. Postal Service offers twenty-first century business solutions to small and medium-sized businesses through a variety of resources. The District office in Boston has professionals on staff that will assist businesses in designing mail, preparing mail for discounts, express mail services, and www.usps.com initiatives. U.S.P.S. professionals support businesses by offering tools to print postage online, create cards, letters, and flyers, print shipping labels for packages, schedule pickups, and access information. The U.S. Postal Service is continuously evolving to meet the needs of the small business community.

ASSOCIATE SPONSORS

Brookline Bank
877.668.2265
www.brooklinebank.com

Brookline Bank is a full service community bank serving the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1871, the bank prides itself on delivering quality financial products coupled with unparalleled customer service to consumers and business customers. With sixteen branches conveniently located in Arlington, Bedford, Brookline, Lexington, Malden, Medford, Newton and West Roxbury, Brookline Bank makes it easy for Greater Boston residents to access its services in person.

Brookline Bank realizes that running your business is challenging enough without having to worry about your banking relationship. The bank realizes that you want your banker to offer you top of the line business banking products and services, coupled with superior banking knowledge. At Brookline Bank, they pride themselves on offering you the products you want with the service you deserve. Its business banking relationship packages give you excellent banking benefits with competitive rates, and its business bankers work with you to help your business succeed.

Citizens Bank
800-4BUSINESS
www.citizensbank.com

Citizens Financial Group has $161 billion in assets, making it the 8th largest commercial bank holding company in the United States with branches in 13 states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Rhode Island, with non-branch offices in more than 40 states.

You work hard at your business. So why not choose a bank that does the same? Citizens Bank’s banking team is here to help make banking easier and more convenient for you. The team helps ensure that you have access to all of its products and services when you need them most. Even if that's in the middle of the night.

Community Newspaper Company
150 Baker Ave. Ext., Ste 201
Concord, MA 01742
978.371.5270
www.townonline.com

Community Newspaper Company (CNC), a division of Gateway Media, is one of the fastest growing media companies in New England and one of the largest community newspaper operations in the country. Though CNC is a large and geographically diverse enterprise, the company is united by a common goal: to publish not just the best local newspapers in the communities we serve, but the best community newspapers, period. With a total readership for more than 1.2 million, our employees become part of an exciting, around-the-clock race to collect and publish the news every day of the year.

SUPPORTING SPONSORS

Leader Bank, N.A.
141 Massachusetts Avenue
Arlington, MA. 02474
781.641.3900
www.leaderbank.com

Leader Bank is a local community bank offering a full range of business and personal banking products, including free business and personal checking, savings and CD accounts, free online banking and bill payment services, and commercial and residential loans, including Home Equity Lines of Credit. All products have highly competitive rates. Leader Bank is headquartered at 180 Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, Mass.

At Leader Bank you will be dealing directly with a decision-maker, thus expediting your business banking process. The bank is dedicated to giving its customers the service they deserve from their bank. Leader Bank’s personal service will give you more time to manage your business rather than worry about your banking.

RCN
956 Massachusetts Avenue
Arlington, MA 02476
617.590.6646 (residential)
617.212.8601 (small business)
www.rcn.com

RCN Corporation is the nation's first and largest facilities-based competitive provider of bundled phone, cable and high-speed internet services delivered over its own fiber-optic local network to consumers in the most densely populated markets in the U.S. RCN provides service in the Boston, New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles metropolitan markets.

EXHIBITORS

Business Resource Team
Executive Office of Economic Development
1 Ashburton Place, Suite 2101
Boston, MA 02108
1.877.BIZ.TEAM (249.8326)
www.mass.gov/bizteam

The Business Resource Team (BRT), formed last July, is a unified effort of 17 state agencies, nonprofits and quasi-public organizations that have joined together to make it easier for companies to work with the state, as well as to be fully aware of all the incentives and resources available to them.

Career Source - Cambridge
Fresh Pond Mall
186 Alewife Brook Parkway, Suite 310
Cambridge, MA 02138
617.661.7867
www.yourcareersource.com/index.htm

Career Source - Everett
1935 Revere Beach Parkway
Everett, MA 02149
617.389.8025
www.yourcareersource.com/index.htm

Career Source is committed to provide all members of its community with continuous and seamless work force development services. By promoting career services that strengthens and assists individuals, employers, and community partners in the attainment of their social and economic goals, the Career Source is a one-stop resource for all employment needs.

Center for Women & Enterprise, E. Mass
24 School Street, Suite 700
Boston, MA 02108
617.536.0700
www.cweonline.org

Established in 1995, the Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE) is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women start and grow their own businesses. Its mission is to empower women to become economically self-sufficient and prosperous through entrepreneurship. CWE offers education, training, technical assistance, women's business enterprise certification and access to both debt and equity capital to entrepreneurs at every stage of business development. Their clients are drawn from a wide variety of racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, spanning the range from women living in public housing who may want to start home-based or small retail businesses to women running fast growth, multi-million dollar technology businesses. As a non-profit, charitable organization, CWE provides scholarships for its services in order to serve all women, regardless of their ability to pay.

The Career Place
100 Sylvan Road, Suite G100
Woburn, MA 01801
781.932.5500
www.CareerPlaceJobs.com

The Career Place provides area businesses a convenient one-stop source for skilled workers and training options. Account representatives work closely with employers to locate qualified job applicants, upgrade the skills of their existing workers, navigate training and economic development programs, and provide up-to-date, online labor market information. Employers can also benefit from the many free services at The Career Place including posting current job openings and using conference rooms for on-site recruiting.

The Insurance Partnership
354 Turnpike Street, Box 204
Canton, MA 02021
Tel: 1-800-399-8285 (Within Massachusetts only)
www.4ip.org

The Insurance Partnership (IP) is a great new program that can help small business owners and their employees pay for health insurance. It can even help those who are self-employed. Funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Insurance Partnership is not a health insurance plan. It's a way to make health insurance more affordable.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Boston Public Library
Kirstein Business Branch
20 City Hall Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
617.523.0860
http://www.bpl.org

Kirstein Business Branch is a specialized business reference and research service of the Boston Public Library located in a separate building near Boston's financial district. At Business Forward 2006, sign up for a Boston Public Library card so that you can take full advantage of all that the Kirstein has to offer, including remote access to REF USA so you can build your mailing lists from your office.

The Minuteman Library Network
www.mln.lib.ma.us

Robbins Library
700 Massachusetts Avenue
Arlington, MA 02476
781.316.3200
www.robbinslibrary.org

Robbins Library offers the small business owner and entrepreneur a reference collection of directories, company information, investment resources and handbooks in print and in online databases. A circulating collection of “how to” books for business cover management, marketing, funding, legal issues, etc. for the small businessman. Business periodicals and newspapers are available in print as well as online. Online periodical databases with full-text articles include hundreds of business magazines, investment analysts’ reports and directory listings. Besides wireless Internet access and ten Internet computers available for public use, the library offers interlibrary loan services to tap library collections nationwide. Robbins Library’s professional librarians stand ready to meet the research needs of our business community.

SMALL BUSINESS RESOURCES

SBA (Small Business Administration)
10 Causeway St., Room 265
Boston, MA 02222
617.565.5590
www.sba.gov

The Small Business Administration is a federal agency that helps people start and grow businesses. We do this three ways. We provide financial assistance through our loan guaranty program. We work with all the large and most of the smaller banks in Massachusetts. Our technical assistance is provided by our partners, SCORE, Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), and Center for Women and Enterprise (CWE). The third way we assist firms is by helping them do business with the federal government. The federal government buys every kind of goods and services. It is a market that is overlooked by many small businesses.

SCORE Boston
Thomas P. O'Neill Federal Building
10 Causeway Street, Room 265
Boston, MA 02222-1093
617.565.5591 for appointment
www.scoreboston.org

SCORE, the nation’s largest volunteer business counseling service, is a nonprofit association dedicated to help those in business, about to start one, or just thinking about it. Founded in 1964, SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Over 50 counselors participate in Boston’s SCORE chapter and their combined experience and knowledge could match most Business School faculties. The confidential counseling is FREE plus there are modestly priced seminars in the Greater Boston area. Our primary goal is to create an on-going relationship with small business entrepreneurs to help them make good business decisions to foster successes, which lead to profits.

SOMWBA (State Office of Minority and Women Business Assistance)
10 Park Plaza, Suite 3740
Boston, MA 02116
617.973.8692
www.somwba.state.ma.us

SOMWBA is an agency within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts helping promote the development of business enterprises and non-profit organizations owned or operated by minorities and women. In addition to its service to minority and women business enterprises, SOMWBA has the responsibility to certify businesses that meet certain criteria.
SOMWBA certification is a marketing tool used to enhance a firm's ability to do business in public markets. Although certification does not guarantee that a business will be successful every time it bids, it may add a competitive edge to a bid. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts spends more than $4 billion each year doing business with firms. More than $240 million of this amount is targeted to SOMWBA certified minority and women businesses. Becoming SOMWBA certified can help firms seeking contracts with the government.