WHEREAS, USA Entrepreneurship Week will be celebrated throughout the country from November 17 to 23, 2008, inclusive; and

WHEREAS, USA Entrepreneurship Week will be held in partnership with Global Entrepreneurship Week; and

WHEREAS, An entrepreneur is an individual who owns, organizes, and manages a business, and in so doing, assumes the risk of either making a profit or losing his or her investment; and

WHEREAS, The term “entrepreneur” also applies to individuals who take risks in pioneering new social ideas and innovative solutions within existing organizations; and

WHEREAS, Entrepreneurs are engaged citizens who work to improve their local communities, thereby providing better opportunities for business and a better overall environment for the human resources that entrepreneurs need to advance their innovative ideas; and

WHEREAS, According to the Department of Labor, most of the new jobs created in the United States during the past decade have stemmed from the creative efforts of entrepreneurs that have expanded and advanced technology and fueled the recent growth of the economy; and

WHEREAS, Of all new entrepreneurial enterprises, 99.9 percent begin as small businesses or microenterprises; and

WHEREAS, In the country as a whole, and in California in particular, well over 90 percent of all businesses can be characterized as small businesses or microenterprises; and

WHEREAS, Small businesses employ over 50 percent of all workers in the state, and microenterprises, nearly 20 percent; and

WHEREAS, During the past 15 years, businesses in operation for less than 5 years have accounted for approximately 70 percent of the jobs created both nationally and in California; and

WHEREAS, The majority of small business and microenterprise owners use an average of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) to start their own businesses, and the greatest single source of that startup money is personal savings; and

WHEREAS, Seventy percent of young Americans envision starting a business or doing something entrepreneurial as adults, but very few learn how to go about it; and

WHEREAS, Starting a new business or undertaking some form of entrepreneurial activity requires fundamental knowledge and skill to develop the marketing, management, and financial plans necessary to run a successful business; and

WHEREAS, The high interest shown by young people in becoming entrepreneurs and the critical role entrepreneurs have played in advancing the national and state economies make it vital to encourage young people from all academic backgrounds and all walks of life to explore their entrepreneurial potential; and

WHEREAS, Global Entrepreneurship Week, an event sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kaufman Foundation, IBM, Ernst & Young, and hundreds of partner organizations, will be celebrated across the world and is intended to promote awareness of the contributions of entrepreneurs as innovators, as positive forces in the economy, and as important resources for improving communities as places to live and work; and

WHEREAS, USA Entrepreneurship Week will help educate policymakers and community leaders about what they can do to help keep America’s entrepreneurial engine running strong; now, therefore, be it