- December 14, 2025
Joe Roy, area manager for the Palm Coast Business Assistance Center, said: “I think that over the next year, what we achieve will be far greater than what we originally set out to do.”
As part of the Palm Coast City Council’s Prosperity 2021 plan, the city’s Business Assistance Center will hold an expo Oct. 7, at the Hammock Beach Resort.
The purpose of the expo, which is privately funded and titled the Business to Business Expo, is to let Flagler County residents know that the BAC is an available resource.
“This is our first chance of trying to get in and say specifically ‘What can we do to help?’” said Joe Roy, area manager for the BAC.
The expo will showcase products and services currently offered by Flagler County businesses. Roy expects to have approximately 100 businesses participate.
Roy said some of the national chains — including Walmart — will also be participating in the expo.
“The idea behind it is to allow even the large retailers to see what’s available,” Roy said. “It’s also a chance for the small businesses to see what opportunities they have to grow their businesses. The goal is to bring people together who have a common interest.”
That common interest is to generate additional revenues, which could generate additional jobs, Roy added.
Roy mentioned the expo as part of his quarterly report to the Palm Coast City Council at its Aug. 16 regular meeting, as well as to the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners Aug. 15.
The BAC has been in existence for about three months now. According to Roy’s presentation, the BAC has 33 countywide customers, of which 23 have been in existence for two years or less. Roy said there are more than 4,000 businesses countywide.
“I think that over the next year, what we achieve will be far greater than what we originally set out to do,” Roy said.
Beau Falgout, senior economic planner for the city, has worked with Roy to strategize how to get the city’s purchasing department to buy locally. Now, every purchase has to have a justification as to why it wasn’t from a local company, Falgout said.
Falgout also said he’s working on how to educate the businesses in the county to do business with the city.
Roy said the BAC is really a virtual organization that doesn’t have any structure but has a lot of moving parts.
“We just simply coordinate the pieces,” Roy said. “We’re depending on (small businesses) to create jobs, but what they face is really an uncertain future.”
— Mike Cavaliere contributed to this report.
