A new position in the city of Roanoke is designed to court and spark entrepreneurs.

Chris Copenhaver, an employee of the city's Department of Economic Development, is Roanoke's first entrepreneurial specialist.

His boss, Brian Brown, said Copenhaver will organize entrepreneurial fairs, explore the creation of "entrepreneurial zones" and be the go-to guy for people contemplating risking the slings and arrows, and rewards, of starting a business.

"Chris can help people maneuver through the whole process -- selecting a building, connecting with the [Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce's] Small Business Development Center, finding financing, developing a good business plan," Brown said.

Copenhaver, 32, is a native Roanoker who graduated in 1999 from Virginia Military Institute. After living in Northern Virginia for about five years, he and his family moved back to Roanoke. He has been an enterprise zone administrator for the city's economic development department and was promoted internally to the entrepreneurial specialist position. His first day on the job was Monday, and his annual salary will be $48,495.

Copenhaver said he is excited about the job and confident there is demand for its services.

"Entrepreneur" is a fancy term, with French roots, for someone willing to risk starting a new business.

By this definition, a man who launches a new escort service is as much an entrepreneur as a woman whose startup focuses on bio-engineering.

But the city's preference, obviously, would be something akin to bio-engineering.

One option the city might consider, said Brown, is establishing an entrepreneurial incubator, which refers to a building or area in which fledgling companies receive such assistance as technical advice, flexible leases and customer networking help. This year, the nonprofit New Century Venture Center, a business incubator, moved out of the city. Its president, Lisa Ison, had expressed disappointment that the city had not been more supportive, financially, of the center -- which offered a start to all kinds of new businesses, from blue collar to starched white.

In addition, the city once characterized the Warehouse Row redevelopment project downtown as an incubator of sorts for high-tech companies beginning to mature after startup. But it quickly accepted at least one established firm among its tenants.

Brown said that if a new incubator is developed, its focus will be office jobs, ranging from accounting to high-technology or biotechnology firms, with the latter possibly spurred by ongoing changes at the Carilion Clinic.

Ison said Monday that she supports the entrepreneurial specialist position and believes Copenhaver will do a good job. But any new incubator should be appropriately outfitted, she said.

"To tie in with Roanoke's current focus on the biomedical industry, it would be most helpful if any new incubator would have the availability of wet and dry lab space," Ison said in an e-mail.

She said additional amenities, such as special air-handling systems, a shared autoclave and a clean lab, "would all be drawing cards and are not currently readily available for new startup companies in the region."

Brown said no location has been selected for a new incubator.

Copenhaver will work with the Economic Development Authority to consider creating entrepreneurial zones in the city, with related incentives, for new businesses. Both Brown and Copenhaver said they believe the entrepreneurial zone approach has not been adopted in many other places. A Google search for "entrepreneurial zone" found an example in the Republic of Croatia.

Phil Sparks, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, said the new position should help prospective business owners leap through the necessary hoops to get started.

"I applaud the city for doing it," Sparks said.