GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— All Chris Reddin really wanted when she took a job applying bar codes to inventory at a Philadelphia bike shop years ago was a discount on a pair of rollerblades.

Where it led, however, was to a job in Grand Junction directing The Business Incubator Center and a state board appointment advising Gov. Bill Ritter on the state of small businesses in Colorado.

Reddin was appointed in November to serve on the governor’s Small Business Advisory Council and the Small Business Development Center State Advisory Board.

State officials chose Reddin because she “has a pulse on the community,” said Kelly Manning, state director of the Small Business Development Center Network in Gov. Bill Ritter’s Office of Economic Development. “She runs the Incubator and is connected to economic development programs there. She’s a really good choice.

“And she’s a huge supporter of small businesses.”

Reddin has helped launch several small businesses.

Two years after that job applying bar codes at the Philadelphia bike store, Reddin moved to Grand Junction to work for her former Philly boss — Paul Aieta — who had relocated here to do work at DT Swiss, a company that makes bicycle components.

Aieta hired Reddin to run the bike parts manufacturing and distribution plant.

Reddin had already graduated with an economics degree from Georgetown University, managed a bike shop and opened a restaurant before moving to Grand Junction in 1996.

“DT Swiss also had a lot of start-up aspects to it. It’d only been open four months when I started,” said Reddin, now 39.

After five years, Reddin left DT Swiss to earn a master’s degree in business administration from Cornell University.

But before leaving for school she took a “Leading Edge” business course at the Incubator with friend Jen Taylor, who was in the process of starting up a children’s outdoor clothing business called Mountain Sprouts. Reddin helped Taylor devise a business plan.

The Leading Edge class was full of practical business applications, Reddin said.

“I took it partly to understand what I didn’t know about business,” she said.

Reddin used Mountain Sprouts as a “case study,” and continued to work with that business throughout graduate school, she said.

After earning her MBA, Reddin returned to Grand Junction and became chief financial officer for Mountain Sprouts, which was located at the Incubator campus, 2591 B 3/4 Road. The company was sold three years later.

Reddin went from client to director of the Incubator in January 2007, bringing a more “client-focused, more hands-on,” approach to the entrepreneur center, said Reddin.

“We help people weather the credit crunch,” Reddin said. “We look at how we can help you stay healthy in leaner economic times.

“Strategic planning, cash-flow analysis and financial projections — that’s what we’re doing right now.”

The Incubator is also host to the Small Business Development Center, a Small Business Administration program providing management assistance to current and prospective small business owners. The program is a cooperative effort of the private sector, the educational community, and federal, state and local governments.

In her new advisory role Reddin plans to relay to the governor how the current credit crunch is affecting businesses’ attempts to grow.

“Growth takes cash, investment of money,” Reddin said. “That’s primarily what’s on my mind.”

The all-new 18-member board will meet for the first time in Denver Monday, and quarterly thereafter. The new board plans to seek input from businesses throughout Colorado in a series of community forums.

“People were strategically picked to make sure each geographical area (of the state) was covered,” Manning said.

So far, Reddin is the only appointee from the Western Slope. But that may change, because the board may grow to up to 45 people, Manning said.

Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com.