The Iowa Center for Economic Success has announced a contract award from the U.S. Small Business Administration to add a Women’s Business Center as part of the small-business services offered by its eastern Iowa office in Muscatine. This is the second Women’s Business Center in Iowa, in addition to the one at the Iowa Center’s Des Moines headquarters. The new center will offer eastern Iowa small-business owners access to training and one-on-one counseling. The Iowa Center established its Muscatine office in 2021 with support from the Community Foundation of Greater Muscatine and Muscatine Community College as part of a three-year pilot program funded by Dick and Mary Jo Stanley and the Kauffman Foundation. The pilot assessed small-business needs in eastern Iowa and identified a Women’s Business Center as a critical tool to empower small-business ownership in the region, a news release said. “Entrepreneurialism, job creation, and small-business growth has been and will continue to be the bedrock of our community’s success. Community leaders, Dick and Mary Jo Stanley, recognized the vision of The Iowa Center decades ago, and planted the seeds for this partnership,” Charla Schafer, president of the Community Foundation of Greater Muscatine, said in a prepared statement. In addition to business coaching, the Iowa Center supports small businesses with credit and lending services and tax services.