Since 1999 the LaBelle Entrepreneurial Center (LEC) has provided self-employment consulting and technical services to economically-disadvantaged persons. The center's primary client has been Michigan Rehabilitation Services (MRS), a state agency whose mission is to assist persons with disabilities into employment. Working together, the two organizations have refined a highly successful model for delivering such supports to an increasing number of the agency's consumers each year.

During 2007 the LaBelle Center expanded service provision to include clients of the U.S. Veterans Administration and the Michigan Commission for the Blind. The LEC also established a cooperative arrangement with the Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center (SBTDC) network to deliver self-employment services to our mutual clients. The College of Business Administration believes that its program constitutes a unique and highly productive partnership between a state university and such agencies and organizations - and that is has developed a model that may prove to be of significant national importance.