The Business Enterprise team has surpassed expectations, partially offsetting repeated cutbacks in state funding through increased revenue through expanded business partnerships. 

 In June 2010, the Florida Turnpike Enterprises showed their confidence in our partnership by renewing MTC’s contract to package the SUNPASS transponder for the state of Florida.  They rolled three one year options into a three year agreement. By the completion of Fiscal Year 2010, MTC had successfully packaged over 2 million transponders, with less than 135 shipped errors, with an error rate of .005579%.

    MTC’s ongoing successful partnership with the Florida Turnpike Enterprises to package the SUNPASS transponder for the state, continues as the hallmark of our EPIC “empowering people, inspiring change,” curriculum. 

In an on-going effort to diversify, MTC’s Business enterprise team took the lessons learned on the SUNPASS contract and over the course of the year, revamped and revitalized our sewing skills training. Their dynamic Business Plan for “Textile Production,” won first runner up in the prestigious Innovative Business Plan competition organized by the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County, receiving a cash prize of $15,000. Generous grants and donations from the Joy McCann Foundation and United Way of Tampa Bay further allowed MTC to purchase industrial machines and establish processes and procedures found in commercial manufacturing plants. The goal is that individuals trained in MTC Textile Production will acquire the job skills to find and retain community employment as entry level machine operators at or above minimum wage. This is an expansion of the kinds of jobs available to people with disabilities while shattering an additional barrier to inclusion.

The additional revenues generated by MTC Business enterprises are essential to furthering the mission of MTC by compensating for funding shortfalls in the other areas of independence. Without these additional revenues independence would be out of the reach of the majority of the people we serve.  Among our many successful business partnerships are relationships with the Florida Department of Transportation, Sea Grass Recovery and Heme-Eze among others.