Berkshire Enterprises

Berkshire Enterprises was founded when Pittsfield Mayor Anne Wojtkowski and Janet Taylor, Chair of the Regional Employment Board of Berkshire County, took an unusual step - they decided to use federal job training funding for entrepreneurial training. Their goal was to encourage unemployed people to both take charge of their lives and start new business ventures. The Maurice A. Donahue Institute of the University of Massachusetts was selected to run the new program. The program continues today with strong support from local, state and federal politicians. The program founders, Alan Robertson and Vicky Singer, wanted to develop something more effective than simple classroom training. As former business owners, they had hands-on knowledge of the complex, all encompassing nature of small business ownership. Early on, they realized that every instructor involved in the program had to be a former business owner and that the program had to provide practical business knowledge...