East Bay SBDC In-Person Advising in Concord



East Bay SBDC in-person advising for small business comes to the Concord City Hall!
We have partnered with the City of Concord Economic Development Department to provide no-cost in-person advising sessions. Ask your questions, get advice and learn how East Bay SBDC can help you start and grow your business.



Click on the image below to schedule your in-person advising session with one of our expert advisors.

Schedule your advising session in CONCORD


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Location
Concord City Hall – Wing A City Manager’s Conference Room (Wing A is the building with the double glass doors)
1950 Parkside Drive Concord, CA 94519
Concord City Hall Map

Schedule
Mondays between 1pm – 5pm (45 min appointments)

February 2, 9, 23, 2026
March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 2026
April 6, 13, 20, 27, 2026
May 4, 11, 18, 2026
June 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 2026
July 13, 20, 27, 2026
August 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, 2026
September 14, 21, 28, 2026
October 5, 12, 19, 26, 2026
November 2, 9, 16, 2026
December 7, 14, 2026



Sandra Markus

Schedule
2/23/2026
5/11/2026
5/18/2026
6/22/2026
7/27/2026
8/17/2026
8/24/2026
9/14/2026
10/5/2026
10/12/2026

11/9/2026

Sandy Markus has been in entrepreneurial environments her whole professional career in corporate divisions, venture capital funded start-ups, and launched her own small business. She has been a lead SBDC Advisor and Trainer for startup businesses for six years.

Sandy brings a unique understanding and experience in and with start-ups, marketing, and business development in the service, retail, wholesale, software-as-a-service, education, and nonprofit sectors.

Schedule
2/2/2026
3/9/2026
4/6/2026
5/4/2026
6/8/2026
7/13/2026
8/10/2026
9/8/2026
10/26/2026
12/7/2026

John DeGaetano is a former bank executive with a strong background in management and leadership.

John served as First Vice President and Regional Manager for a community bank in the Bay Area where he played a major role in the bank’s growth development.

John advises new and existing business owners in the areas of business planning, finance, sales, and disaster planning.

Schedule
2/9/2026
3/16/2026
3/23/2026
4/13/2026
4/20/2026
6/15/2026
7/20/2026
11/2/2026

12/14/2026

Pablo Gomez is a Spanish and English speaking advisor of the SBDC group as a Small Business Advisor with 5 years of experience in Small Business Advising and 7 years of experience in healthcare business compliance advising. Pablo holds a Master’s in Business Administration from CSU East Bay and is a certified business analyst from the Project Management Institute. He has participated in Corporate Finance research and holds a passion for financing, marketing (SEO & social media experienced) and business plan creation & implementation and start-up guidance. He believes in working hard and always aiming for solutions which will always lead you to achieving your dreams.

MBA, CSU East Bay, 2020
B.S. Cell/Cellular and Molecular Biology, UC Santa Cruz, 2014

Laurie Zerga

Schedule
3/2/2026
3/30/2026
4/27/2026
6/1/2026
6/29/2026
8/3/2026
8/31/2026
9/21/2026

10/19/2026

11/16/2026

Laurie Zerga is a Strategic Business Advisor at SBDC and loves helping entrepreneurs with marketing, IT, customer service, startups and p&l accountability from $2M to $45M. She is an accomplished senior executive, C-Suite officer, consultant, entrepreneur, thought leader, and board member with over 25 years of success across financial services, food, international technology and engineering industries.



Sign up to be an East Bay SBDC Client First

If you are not a current client of the East Bay SBDC, before signing up for advising, you must sign up to be an East Bay SBDC client first. Go to https://www.eastbaysbdc.org/join/ to sign up and schedule a quick intake interview.

Waitlist
Please email ebinfo@eastbaysbdc.org with your preferred dates to be added to the waitlist. If a cancellation occurs, we will reach out to you.

Parking
The Willow Pass Road parking lot, which is about 2963 Willow Pass Road. This is the closest parking lot to the Wing A conference room.

Cancellation Policy

We have limited resources available for in-person one-on-one individual counseling at the City of Concord.

To save spaces for those individual/business who need one-on-one counseling, if any business has “No Show” or “Same Day cancellation” for their appointment session with the SBDC Advisor, this individual or business will no longer receive any counseling service from the East Bay SBDC in the future, especially not in-person advising at the City of Concord.

If you must cancel your appointment, please remove your name from the schedule and notify us by Thursday the week before your appointment to give us time to fill your spot with another business. If a business does not confirm their appointment by Friday 8 am the week before, their appointment time will be given to another business that is waiting for
an appointment time slot.