Brooklyn's Progress
June/July 2005

By Khadija Batuta

The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is expanding the business services it provides through its satellite office of the NYC Business Solutions Center with two new additions to its staff, Bomi Kim and Jeanette Nigro.

Bomi Kim joined the Chamber on Feb. 22 as its Manager of Brooklyn Connects, the Chamber’s new initiative that provides comprehensive procurement and business-to-business assistance to Brooklyn companies.  In this new role, Bomi will help new and experienced Brooklyn vendors learn of bidding opportunities for government contracting and purchasing at the federal, state and local levels, as well as the private sector.  Through the Brooklyn Connects program, Bomi will create connections between Brooklyn businesses and markets in and outside the borough with a special emphasis on providing specific technical assistance to women and minority-owned businesses.

Bomi has worked in business services and economic development for more than four years.  Before joining the Brooklyn Chamber, she worked with the Queens Borough President’s Office providing consulting, technical and policy assistance to neighborhood development organizations and businesses.

Also new to the staff is Jeanette Nigro who joined the Chamber on March 14 as its Human Resources Specialist at the Business Solutions Center.  Jeanette is responsible for the development of new staffing accounts, the marketing of various workforce related incentives, and working individually with small businesses around the various human resource challenges they face.

Jeanette's background, mainly in sales, consists of training and management, most recently as a licensed financial advisor and account executive for a national securities investment firm.  Jeanette also owns her own small Brooklyn-based wedding and event planning business.

The NYC Business Solutions Center (BSC) at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce – one of the Bloomberg Administration’s major initiatives for small businesses – is a partnership with the NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) designed to provide high quality, user-friendly business development and workforce services to entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized companies.  In addition, the BSC works in partnership with the Brooklyn Workforce1 Career Center and Goodwill Industries, the on-site partner, in an effort to promote the hiring of job seekers through the public workforce system.  Whereas Goodwill Industries works to prepare job seekers to enter employment, the BSC works with businesses to meet their various human resource challenges.

For more information or for assistance with business planning, financing, government facilitation, procurement, incentive programs and human resource issues, please contact the NYC Business Solutions Center at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce at 718-875-3400.

In other Chamber staff news, Theresa Reyes joined Brooklyn HealthWorks as Project Assistant on March 10.  Brooklyn HealthWorks is the Chamber’s low-cost health insurance program for eligible small businesses and sole proprietors in Northern Brooklyn.  Theresa, who graduated from Mercy College at Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration/Management, provides support for the program’s Director, Michelle Matthews, with outreach and other projects as well as enrollment, customer service and billing.  To learn more about Brooklyn HealthWorks call 718-596-4550, or visit http://www.brooklynhealthworks.com/.