Yuma Small Business Development Center honored for boosting local startups, funding

The Yuma Small Business Development Center is being recognized for work that shows up in the numbers: 500 entrepreneurs counseled in 2025, 39 business startups launched and more than $7 million in capital secured for local clients.

That record helped earn the center recognition from the U.S. Small Business Administration during National Small Business Month, a nod the center says reflects more than institutional prestige. In Yuma County, where many small businesses need help with financing, licensing, planning and compliance, the SBDC’s role has become tied directly to whether an idea turns into a storefront, a service company or a payroll.

The center serves entrepreneurs across Yuma and La Paz counties, a combined area of 10,037 square miles. Arizona Western College says the program provides bilingual one-on-one counseling in English and Spanish, resource assistance and training, with service points at Somerton City Hall, Wellton Library, San Luis Branch Library, the AWC Parker Learning Center, the AWC Quartzsite Campus and the Quechan Business Development Center. It also offers Zoom advising and rural walk-in counseling, extending its reach across a region shaped by agriculture, military operations, tourism and manufacturing, and by its access to California and Mexico markets.

Judith Aceves said the award confirmed that the team’s work is making a difference not just for clients, but for the wider community. Mary Lopez said the SBDC helps business owners get the guidance they need to become profitable and sustain growth. Crystal Mendoza, the center director, credited the staff’s passion and willingness to innovate, including expanded bilingual access and youth entrepreneur camps that reach younger and more diverse business owners.

The SBA describes Small Business Development Centers as providing individualized advising and technical assistance to pre-venture entrepreneurs and existing small businesses. In Yuma, that support has translated into measurable output before. In April 2025, the Arizona District Office of the SBA gave the Yuma-area center its Excellence Award after the program reported 41 new businesses launched, 121 full-time jobs created and $3.2 million in capital formed in fiscal year 2024. By late 2024, the center said it had served about 1,715 clients, held more than 50 workshops and hosted a Moonshot Pitch Competition.

The center’s 2026 schedule shows the pipeline is still active, with a no-cost Youth Entrepreneurial Skills Training Workshop, a DreamBuilder childcare-business cohort, a Money Matters financial literacy workshop and a Small Business Resource Fair. For Yuma County, the honor lands as a snapshot of a larger economic question: how much of the region’s job growth and business formation is being built one startup, one loan package and one counseling session at a time.