560 Minority Firms Ready to Do Business at Conference
Nine years ago, Jim Espinosa decided he couldn’t spend yet another year working for somebody else. He wanted to start his own business, and he went looking for advice on how he should do it. But finding the kind of help he needed wasn’t easy.
“One guy--who I had hired to help me--said that because of my last name, I would never amount to anything more than a shipping clerk on a warehouse floor,” recalled Espinosa, who is Latino.
Espinosa, 50, proved him wrong. Today he is the owner of Orange Coast Electric Supply Co., a Santa Ana electric parts distributor with 25 employees and more than $9 million in annual sales. He credits part of his success to programs at area corporations that set aside a percentage of subcontracting work for minority-owned firms.
Espinosa was among 560 minority business owners who attended an Anaheim conference on Thursday to make contact with representatives of about 100 Orange County and Los Angeles area corporations interested in contracting with minority-owned firms.
“We’re here to get some business,” said Lou Flores, owner of Forms Consultants, a Westminster office supplies company. “We wouldn’t usually get a chance to meet corporate buyers. This is a way for us to get our foot in the door.”
Very few minority business owners walked away from the conference with contracts in hand. But many said they felt encouraged, and some had scheduled follow-up sessions with potential corporate clients. “I’ve learned a lot and made some good contacts,” said Nick Rosas, owner of NC Fabrication, a Santa Ana machine shop.
A number of corporate participants said they were looking for minority-owned high-technology firms. Aerospace companies in particular said they need minority vendors to work on complex projects such as satellites and missiles.
“I would say there is a serious shortage of these companies,” said John M. Keany, corporate liaison with Hughes Aircraft. “We can’t find enough of them.” The shortage, said experts, reflects the large amounts of money required to get into the aerospace business.
Companies working on federally funded projects received orders in November to try harder to contract with minority-owned businesses. Congress passed legislation imposing fines on firms that fail to maintain existing affirmative action quotas on certain kinds of projects.
“CEOs in Orange County are reaffirming their efforts to hire minority-owned businesses,” said Albert Dawson, chairman of the the Orange County Regional Purchasing Council, a nonprofit organization that sponsored Thursday’s conference. “This new legislation has real teeth in it.”
Dawson said the financial health of the minority business community has steadily improved since the first Minority Business Opportunity Day was held 7 years ago. Since then, total revenue reported by minority-owned businesses in Southern California has grown from $200 million to $700 million, according to the Southern California Regional Purchasing Council.
“There are more opportunities and more sensitivity on the behalf of a majority of corporations in the area,” Dawson said. “We have come a long way.”
Minority business owners seemed unconcerned about a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down strict affirmative action quotas used to hire minority firms for city and state government projects. The ruling did not apply to set-aside programs involving federal funds or to contracts between private companies.
“The only impact I think it will have is to send a message to corporations that are uncomfortable dealing with minority vendors that it is OK to shut them out,” said Ron Parker, owner of Software Creations, a Carson software development firm.
