Steamboat Springs, August 5, 2020 — Honey Stinger, the honey-powered sports nutrition brand, is pleased to announce the expansion of its partnership with Colorado Mountain College (CMC), to include gifting a yearly use of a portion of the company’s new headquarters, located at the Steamboat Springs Airport, for CMC to house its Yampa Valley Entrepreneurship Center (YVEC).
“We could not be more excited to house CMC’s Yampa Valley Entrepreneurship Center here in our new headquarters and expand our partnership with Colorado Mountain College,” said Mike Keown, CEO of Honey Stinger. “The mission of the YVEC and the opportunities it provides for entrepreneurs make it an ideal fit to share our space, and to promote a collaborative culture as we seek to further support the Steamboat community and help bolster local economic development.”
The gifted portion of the building, which Honey Stinger relocated to this spring, is an upstairs loft space which includes a conference room, three doored offices and six to eight additional work stations. The space will house a range of small start-up business tenants, as well as ad hoc resources that YVEC provides for the broader business community.
Established in 1999, CMC’s Yampa Valley Entrepreneurship Center supports economic development through business counseling, mentorship and community service. It offers a broad range of workshops and seminars, provides valuable tools and resources for businesses, facilitates free and confidential counseling with Yampa Valley SCORE counselors, promotes and assists with community networking and engagement, and more.
Relocating the YVEC to Honey Stinger’s new headquarters also frees up valuable space for CMC to add a state-of-the-art nursing simulation lab at its Steamboat campus, in the former YVEC location. CMC Steamboat offers associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing. At capacity, the campus can enroll up to 60 nursing students at a time.
“Together with this partnership, Honey Stinger and Colorado Mountain College can continue to provide numerous benefits to the Steamboat Springs community and broader mountain resort region,” said Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of Colorado Mountain College. “We are thrilled that Honey Stinger and CMC’s Yampa Valley Entrepreneurship Center will now literally work side by side to support and stimulate both the local well-being and economy.
“And by freeing up space at the Steamboat campus for our nursing students,” Hauser said, “we are able to educate future health care providers right here in town with advanced medical instruction.”
As part of a broader partnership, Honey Stinger will also be offering direct internships to CMC students and collaborating with several of the college’s academic departments closely tied to the company’s core values, business model and future growth.
The partnership will be formalized with a small, invitation-only ribbon cutting ceremony, following all local safety guidelines around COVID-19, today in Steamboat Springs. The YVEC is expected to be fully relocated to its new home inside the Honey Stinger headquarters by mid-August.
