A. Elizabeth Bernhard is excited to get to work as the new director of the South Haven Regional Business Hub.

The hub announced Bernard’s hiring this week, and she tells us she already had plenty of experience working with the organization. She most recently served as the director of the Manufacturing Growth Alliance, based in Benton Harbor, and in that role, she supported manufacturers that worked with the South Haven Regional Business Hub.

Bernhard says her goal as director of the hub will be to provide support to businesses of all kinds in the South Haven region, and one focus will be on new entrepreneurs.

“In 2024, 2,600 new business applications were filed,” Bernhard said. “That means there were 2,600 entrepreneurs who wanted to get their start in Southwest Michigan. But unfortunately, 45 to 50% of these will close within the first three years. So there is an extraordinary opportunity to get ahead of these entrepreneurs before they even launched their business to make sure they know that there’s a network behind them.”

Bernhard says while tourism is a major industry in the region, effort should be made to strengthen other sectors that attract new residents.

“We need economic activity in our region that will stay on between the months of September through May.”

Bernhard says the South Haven area is facing a demographics challenge as in the last 20 years the median age of residents has gone dramatically up. However, she believes attracting younger people to the area can be accomplished through economic development. She also believes connecting retirees with those new residents and entrepreneurs should be a goal.

Bernhard says the South Haven Regional Business Hub is already getting to work on new educational resources to help support businesses, and we can expect to see more in the near future.