State Agency Seeks Hispanic Chamber’s Help : Jobs: The state Employment Training Panel has asked the civic group to identify small, minority-owned businesses.

Tapped by a state employment agency to help it award at least $2.5 million in employee training funds, the San Diego County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is quickly establishing its presence in a region where a surging Latino population accounts for nearly 20% of the county’s residents.

Although barely a year old, the chamber was chosen last month by the state Employment Training Panel (ETP) to identify small, minority-owned businesses that would profit from financial assistance in training new hires or retraining current workers. Now numbering 170 members, the chamber was formed last November to enhance the development and growth of Latino enterprises in the county.

The chamber will apply directly to the ETP on behalf of the small businesses that it identifies and has an opportunity to obtain at least $2.5 million of the panel’s funds, said ETP assistant director Rhonda English-Johnson.

Established in 1982, the Sacramento-based agency administers $55 million annually from the unemployment insurance fund to help employers establish training programs for its workers, English-Johnson said. Although ETP money is available for large corporations, the funds designated for the chamber are earmarked to assist small businesses, minority-owned or women-owned operations.

“We’ve had trouble in the past reaching small businesses, the real mom and pop shops,” English-Johnson said. “Such a small operation, typically, only needs to get one person trained. Even if it’s for a good program, that’s not cost-effective for us. We need to have a training class. As a result, we couldn’t really help those who needed help the most.

“But the chamber, with its tremendous network into the community, can identify several businesses that each have one or two individuals that need the same type of training,” English-Johnson said. “They can get a consortium of seven or eight people (from different companies) together for us.”

The ETP’s recruitment of the San Diego County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is an example of how both government agencies and corporate America are increasingly turning to Latino professional organizations to reach the exploding population group that is expected to reach 30 million--or 15% of the total U.S. population--by the year 2000.

Last year, U.S. companies, recognizing this group’s projected purchasing power of more than $170 billion, spent $550 million advertising to Latinos, 12.1% more than in 1987, according to Hispanic Business, a monthly magazine.

American companies are also eager to work with the growing number of quality Latino companies in the U.S. to reach this fast-growing population group, according to Joe Lira, national administrator of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The Kansas City, Mo.-based group was founded in 1979 to foster the growth and development of Latino business enterprises directly and through the support of its national network of 200 Latino chambers and professional organizations.

According to Lira, there will be 400,000 Latino-owned and operated businesses in the United States by 1990, up from 270,000 in 1975. Lira added that such companies reported total revenues of $23 billion last year and hire 1.5 million workers annually.

“As Hispanic businesses have grown so has the need for organizations that foster its growth and allow these businesses to become a major part of corporate America,” Lira said.

“Just in the last two years we gained 20% of our membership--our biggest gain ever,” Lira said. “But we except even more growth in the next couple of years.”

The San Diego County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of 3,500 Latino-owned and operated businesses and 473,800 Latino residents in the county, according to Arnoldo B. Uribe, one of the chamber’s founders and its acting president.

“With such numbers, we definitely recognized that there was a need to establish an organization that would strive specifically to foster Latino businesses,” Uribe said. “A lot of our members belong to the regular Chamber of Commerce, but to be very honest, they have done very little to promote our own little businesses. They just don’t have that kind of manpower.”

Shortly after it was established, the chamber began sponsoring seminars, workshops and social events in an attempt to give its members as many networking opportunities as possible. Uribe said individual chamber membership costs $75. Small to medium businesses are charged $150 and corporations $500.

“If I’m having a party and need a caterer, I’m going to go to one of the caterers who is a member of the Chamber,” Uribe said. “And, when he needs flowers for an event, I hope he comes to my place. That’s what this is all about.” After serving 16 years in several educational posts at San Diego State University, Uribe, 43, recently opened Fiesta Bonita Florist in Bonita.

So far the chamber has sponsored workshops that have taught participants how to get involved with U.S.-Mexico trade, including participating in the booming maquiladora industry, on waste management and activities linking buyers to vendors.

In addition, the chamber plans to take an active role in educating its youth to ensure business success.

“One of our primary goals is to counter the tremendous dropout rate among our youth,” Uribe said. “In the state, nearly 50% of Latino students don’t graduate from high school, and in the county it’s definitely more than 40%. If we don’t reverse this trend, we recognize that there won’t be a next generation of Latino businesses.”

The education committee’s first function is a fund-raiser dance scheduled for Feb. 9 at the Marriott Hotel in Mission Valley, Uribe said. The chamber hopes to net $10,000 from the dance, all of which will be used for scholarships to assist high school seniors aspiring to attend college.

The committee is also in the midst of establishing a “speakers’ bureau” by tapping its professional members to serve as role models and to lecture at the county’s schools.