{"id":128760,"date":"2026-05-12T15:35:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-small-business-conference-tackles-burnout-professional-kindness\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T16:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:20:16","slug":"southwest-colorado-small-business-conference-tackles-burnout-professional-kindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorado-small-business-conference-tackles-burnout-professional-kindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference tackles burnout, professional kindness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Professional
Professional connections abound at last week\u2019s 14th annual Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

IGNACIO \u2013 Fostering professional connections amid a shifting market and an often difficult business-ecosystem was a common theme at last week\u2019s 14th annual Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference.<\/p>\n

The conference, which was presented by the Southwest Colorado Small Business Development Center, the Fort Lewis College Center for Innovation and the Durango Chamber of Commerce, took place May 6 at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio.<\/p>\n

Keynote speakers, close to 20 breakout sessions and a healthy dose of networking took place. A range of topics were explored, including avoiding burnout, navigating business loans, making it in a small market, practicing professional kindness and using artificial intelligence for practical data uses.<\/p>\n

Jack Llewellyn, a business development officer with Bank of Colorado, was one of 175 attendees.<\/p>\n

He said he attended the conference to network and get a gauge on new businesses forming in Southwest Colorado, but walked away with practical routes for improving his own operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to go back and check our CRM (customer relationship management) system,\u201d he said. \u201c(I heard) a few things (today) that were great reminders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several speakers addressed the crowd, including Sandy A. Lane from Sandy Lane Consulting; Elizabeth Philbrick, owner of Esoterra Ciderworks and a La Plata County commissioner; and Liz Cartier, dean of the FLC Katz School of Business.<\/p>\n

\"Attendees
Attendees play a business-themed board game at the 14th annual Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference on May 6 at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Philbrick underscored the important role a supportive professional community plays in keeping rural small businesses alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we (at Esoterra) very, very quickly learned is being good at your product is not being good at business, and business requires a genuine community of people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jordan Noble, an event organizer, said the conference allows business owners to step outside their day-to-day operations and connect with others in the business world.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving in a rural region, it is vital that we create training opportunities like this conference to contribute to the development of our workforce and economic region,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

epond@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Sandy
Sandy A. Lane speaks at the 14th annual Southwest Colorado Small Business Conference on May 6 at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a chance to network and gauge new businesses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[431,1820,28,1235],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-128760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-business-general","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-headlines","tag-ignacio"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128770,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128760\/revisions\/128770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128760"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=128760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}