Hispanic business chamber growing

Mary Mc Curley was faced with a dilemma.

If she couldn't attract any bilingual agents to work for Coldwell Banker Commercial, The Duncan Company, the firm would certainly fall behind competitors who are positioning themselves to serve the growing Hispanic-owned business sector.

Mc Curley, the firm's marketing and business development director, was unsure where to turn.

Then she received an invitation to a spring reception for the Hispanic Business Committee. The committee, part of the Lodi Chamber of Commerce, was formed a year ago this week to foster links between Lodi's Hispanic-owned businesses and other firms through education and outreach.

"Before this group came along, I didn't see that bridge," Mc Curley said.

Today, she is interviewing several bilingual candidates, which should help her company keep up with a rapid rise in the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the state.

Meanwhile, the committee is planning to expand its efforts to educate Hispanic business owners -- and the community at large -- to services and resources available in and out of the Hispanic-owned business sector.

The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in California and their revenues grew significantly between 1997 and 2002, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Business Owners.

The census figures, released last week, show that the number of Hispanic-owned firms increased 27 percent, from 372,200 to 427,800 during those five years. Revenues for those firms jumped 12 percent to reach $57.8 billion, the figures showed.

Local efforts to build networks between business communities takes on even greater importance given the growing number of firms in the state owned by Hispanics, said Luis Olivarez, owner of L&M Tax Services and the committee's secretary-elect.

To further that networking, the committee is preparing to survey Hispanic-owned businesses to better understand the state of the business sector in Lodi.

"It will be eye-opening for many people to see what kind of resources are out there," committee chair Sandra Gonzalez, co-owner of Casa Gonzalez Bridal Boutique, said of the survey.

With no specific data available on demographics within the Lodi Hispanic business community, the committee hopes the survey results will show where that sector stands in terms of business size, finance, education and marketing, as well as the primary language spoken in the business.

Pat Patrick, president and CEO of the Lodi Chamber of Commerce, said the committee is helping to connect business communities.

"We encourage their growth, and already the work that they started doing is bringing the Anglo and Hispanic business communities closer together," Patrick said.

Mc Curley expects to see further growth in the number of businesses owned by Hispanics.

"A lot of the new commercial and industrial companies are going to be either based in Mexico or secondand third-generation Hispanics," she said.

The sector is growing in the scale of its projects, too. For example, a firm based in Mexico City is planning to open 50 large plaza-like shopping centers in the United States, complete with churches supermarkets, Mc Curley said.

Through prosperity in the Hispanic business sector, other companies can find success, Mc Curley said.

"It's a source of the population that, as business people, we really have to plug into to maintain a certain amount of success."

Contact reporter Jake Armstrong at jakea@lodinews.com.