Ryan Murray directs USU Eastern’s Small Business Development Center Workforce Development

This archived article was written by: Katie Felice

Students interested in starting a business need to stop by the Workforce Services Building to talk to Ryan Murray.
As of January 2014, Ryan Murray took on the position of the Director of the Small Business Development Center and Custom Fit.
Murray is originally from Davis County, but moved to Price from Tooele where he worked as the director of the Tooele Small Business Development Center. Graduating from Westminster, Murray earned his undergrad degree in finance and his MBA in entrepreneurship.
The Center for Workforce Development is not only available for the college’s use, but for the community. Their service is to oversee the Price and Emery County area providing small business and start up business with one-on-one counseling. This counseling is a time for meeting to discuss any aspect of their business, to help get financing and to establish marketing strategies.
There is also a complimentary program known as custom fit that offers facilitated training. The custom-fit program is where the state of Utah provides funds for businesses to help them improve their training opportunities. As a part of this, the center helps facilitate training programs by connecting businesses with training, whether it be in the center, outside of the area or online.
Murray claims that the most rewarding of his job and service is, “Helping people realize their dreams.”
A current project the center is working to launch a training calendar for 2015 that will provide greater training opportunities locally. The calendar of events, with a list of all the training opportunities, is to be finalized within the next couple of weeks.
“Entrepreneurs are great people,” Murray said. “They want to improve their community, their neighborhoods and just want to make things better.”
The Workforce Service Center highly encourage any students interested in business and entrepreneurship to come by and utilize their free services and counseling. For student’s convenience, the center offers a business-boot-camp session every third Friday of each month from noon to 1 p.m. where interested students can attend lectures and training to learn more about real world business. Opportunities for students who would like to intern in business is available at the center.
Murray explains the best advice he has yet to receive is, “to have a clear focus of what you want.”