Big, established companies tend to get top billing when thoughts turn to the state’s overall business picture.

But in the day-to-day work of the Maryland Department of Commerce, team members are talking with the smaller companies all the time. In fact, department figures indicate that the majority of job growth is driven by the 600,000 companies with 50 or fewer employees in the state.

It gets to a reality of a local economy in 2020: “In order to have a robust ecosystem it can’t just be the larger companies,” said Allyson Redpath. “It needs to have the influx of new ideas, of new blood, of energy that you find in the startup community.” In late December 2019, Redpath assumed a new role as entrepreneurship director in the commerce department that’s designed to focus on those fledgling firms.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE