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RANDOLPH – Ben Benton is looking forward to helping northeast Nebraska small business owners once he starts his new job.
The 47-year-old recently submitted his resignation from the position of Randolph city administrator/ clerk and is set to become the next director of the regional Small Business Development Center office that is located in Wayne.
Benton’s last day of working at the Randolph city office is March 15 and his first day on the job for the SBDC is March 18.
“I’m definitely excited at the opportunity to try something new,” Benton said. “It’s definitely bittersweet because I’ve enjoyed working here. There’s always things not quite 100 percent done when you leave. You’ll never, ever get it all done.”
The SBDC office housed at Wayne State College is one of eight under the Nebraska Business Development Center – which is a part of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s College of Business Administration – and serves 30 counties across the north-central and northeast portions of the state.
“I’ll be working with small business owners and individuals who want to start a small business,” Benton said. “One of the neat things about the job that I understand so far is there’s no fee to the business owner or the prospective business owner to work with the SBDC.
“There’s just going to be an amazing amount of training,” he said. “I’ve got a certification I need to get. It takes about two years to acquire it, so I’ll be starting on that and just learning the job.”
He will not be thrown into the deep end of the job without help, however. The person Benton will replace – Loren Kucera of Clarkson – in the position has more than 30 years of on-the-job experience with the NBDC and will stay on in a parttime capacity for about a month to give Benton hands-on training.
“He’s going to give me a really nice springboard, a leap forward, in confidence and competence in the job,” Benton said.
Kucera is actually the person who encouraged Benton to apply for the position, as the former announced during the September 2023 meeting of the Northeast Nebraska Economic Development Network in Randolph that he was retiring from the job.
Two months later, during the organization’s meeting in Schuyler, Kucera told Benton that he should apply for the position.
Benton read the job description and was not sure about applying for it at first, but after praying about it and getting the go-ahead from his wife, Trisha, he went for it in December.
He interviewed for the position a couple of times in January and then was offered the job that month. He officially accepted the offer on Feb. 7 and started the process of notifying Randolph Mayor Dwayne Schutt, the Randolph City Council members, his fellow city employees and city board members about the news.
Benton expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to have worked for the City of Randolph since December 2019 and noted the community is in good hands with Josh Rayford, the city’s treasurer and deputy clerk, and Randolph’s other city employees.
“Josh is good at treasurer, and of course, he’s deputy clerk, so he’s able to handle the clerk duties until a replacement can get hired,” Benton said. “I’m thankful for the mayor and the council. I’m confident the city will find the right person to fill the role.”
