Portland State Magazine Winter 2007

Above: Italian-style bakery treats await customers at Di Prima Daiei on North Killingsworth Street in Portland. 8 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE WINTER 2007 Making dreams come true through the Business Outreach Program. AFTER MORE THAN 11 years, Pac DiPrima-LeConche was secure in her employee communications job at Tri-Met. Bue she dreamed of sweeter things. Specifically, she dreamed of cannofi-crisp, sweet, golden-brown and warm from the oven. Of tira– misu-dense, mulcilayered, complex. Of zeppofi- feather-light Italian donuts, rich with ricotta and eggs. DiPrima-LeConche dreamed of opening Portland's first true lcalian– scyle bakery. "I saw a need," she says, "for a cannofi a day." To translate her dream to the real world, she took a 10-week baking course in Portland and attended classes at the San Fran– cisco Baking Institute. Then the real work began. "Entrepreneurs are often dreamers who may not have the ability to get their idea off the ground," she says, standing in the gleaming public area of her Portland bakery, DiPrima Dolci on North Killingsworth Street, surrounded by stacks of her signa– ture cannofi, golden cubes filled with sweetened ricotta, pistachios, cherries and chocolate, by beautiful cakes and delicacies like pasta ciotta, soft tarts filled with almond custard. "They might have the most bril- liant idea, but lack the practical sense to put it all together. That's where the Business Outreach Program at Portland State has been an invaluable asset for me-they help you with the practical, fundamental elements you need to start a business," says DiPrima-LeConche. FOR THE PAST 12years,PSU's Business Outreach Program (BOP) has been providing chose fundamentals to small businesses in the Portland metro