Moonshot Expanding Reach, Offerings

As always, let me start by thanking the City of Flagstaff, our local sponsors and our entrepreneur community for partnering with Moonshot and the campus of NACET over the past 22 years. Your commitment to bettering the lives of Northern Arizonans is greatly appreciated and we are humbled by your continued support. Judging by the start-up founders in our program to date, and the fact that more than 80% of the office and manufacturing space at the NACET campus is filled, I’d say Flagstaff and Northern Arizona have a promising economic future.

With a strong budget and forecast, Moonshot AZ moves into the 2022-23 fiscal year with plans on expanding our staff, our reach and our offerings. While continuing to build on our core services and programs that are bringing successful businesses into being, creating new jobs and changing the economic landscape, we are seeing an expansion of overseeing and powering incubator campuses and economic development initiatives all across the state of Arizona.

Not only are we providing mentorship and training for new businesses, but we’re also working to cultivate the workforce needed to support start-ups, particularly for those groups who are often under-represented.

Young Entrepreneurs, College Internships

We have been inspired by what we have seen from our youth. Fueled by this, several times a year, our team will be launching Moonshot Junior Tracks, geared toward high school-aged students.

Moonshot is also in its second year of working with the Northern Arizona University students in the schools of Business, Hospitality and Engineering in order to communicate the basic fundamentals that entrepreneurs utilize to build successful start-ups.

Diversity in Entrepreneurship

We are continuing to build on our “W.E. (Women Entrepreneurs) Mean Business” meetups for Flagstaff-area entrepreneurs and business leaders, but also expanding our efforts across Arizona to be all-inclusive with additional programs designed to attract and specifically support People of Color & LGBTQ entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs in Rural Areas

It is crucial to our mission to continue to serve rural areas, but not every community has the resources to bring our hands-on personnel to their location. Therefore, we have created a virtual incubator program, Moonshot Satellite, a scaled down delivery version of our services to assist rural and smaller cities in Arizona. This platform will connect rural entrepreneurs to an ever-growing network of Moonshot mentors, coaches, industry sector-specific advisors and fellow entrepreneurs.

Workforce Training

Moonshot’s development and management of innovative manufacturing and business and workforce development initiatives have traditionally exceeded client expectations; Moonshot’s Arizona Stitch Lab is positioned to set an even higher bar with its expansion plan. The program’s strategic alignment with the City of Tucson – the beta market for the program – allowed us to quickly reskill an underserved community – the Yaqui Tribe of the Pascua Yaqui Nation – by developing industrial sewing skills that aligned with a regional need for trained sewers that was underestimated pre-COVID, and surfaced mid-COVID as global supply chain challenges halted the growth of many domestic companies. The AZ Stitch Lab Rural Expansion Project will allow us to not only fill this need to ramp up domestic manufacturing, but will also allow us to upskill graduates of the basic program for high-paying remote jobs that will allow them to take on clients from around the world while residing in their home community.

Economic Development Planning

2021 also saw Moonshot being awarded an EDA Sprint grant to develop a software solution that redefines rural economic development planning. The Moonshot Community Planner is now ready to onboard cities across Arizona and bring communities together.

Finally, it is with great excitement that we announce Diana White as the new executive director of Moonshot’s Flagstaff NACET campus. For the past three years, she has been managing our Chandler Innovations contract and representing Moonshot in Maricopa County. We are thrilled to have her back in Flagstaff and as our regional representative! FBN

By Scott Hathcock

Scott Hathcock serves as the president and CEO of Moonshot (www.moonshotaz.com), a 21-year-old 501(c)3 non-profit. The mission of Moonshot is to assist both entrepreneurs in building and scaling start-ups as well as developing entrepreneurial ecosystems for economic development purposes across Arizona.