Entrepreneurs Honored for Successes
Along with their dreams, small-business owners honored during National Small Business Week brought sparkly magic wands, deluxe beef steaks, high-temperature textiles, Creole seasonings and piles of potato-free Idaho Spud candy.
As always, the annual event drew hundreds of entrepreneurs and their families to the capital for purposes of flexing their political muscle, showing off their products and just plain schmoozing.
The centerpiece of the gathering was a Rose Garden ceremony Tuesday at the White House with the presentation of awards to 53 small-business owners chosen by the U.S. Small Business Administration for success in the face of adversity.
Typical of the winners was Joann Schulz, president of DGR Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla., who was named Small Business Person of the Year.
“You have to believe in what you are doing and be persistent,” she said.
Schulz, who was totally disabled for three years after a car accident, eventually went to work for a major hospital supply company. There, she learned about the various products needed for eye surgery. Schulz left her job to start DGR with her husband in 1985. A year later, her husband died, and she stepped in to run the fledgling operation. This year, the company, which employs 75 and sells products in 22 countries, projects sales of $5 million.
When President Bush handed Schulz the plaque naming her Small Business Person of the Year, he not only kissed her on the cheek but showed her the heart monitor he was wearing after she inquired about his health.
Bush, in his remarks, warmly described small-business owners as “20 million pieces of the American Dream.”
One such piece of the dream belongs to Mark Eilrich, founder of Wildewood Creative Products, in Sonora, Calif. He is a former police officer who never thought he’d end up at the White House, let alone as third-place winner in the SBA’s annual competition.
In 1981, Eilrich’s wife, Caren, filled a plastic tube with water and beads to make a toy for their daughter, Elizabeth. Today, 80 people work at Wildewood, which sold $2.9 million worth of Galaxy Tubes, Crystal Keepers and Magic Stars last year.
When second-place winner Leo LeBlanc of Muskegon, Mich., was fired from his corporate job, he was managing 1,500 people. Unable to find a job at 51, he offered to help turn around Enterprise Brass Works, an ailing metal casting and manufacturing company.
He later bought the company, which makes valves, fittings and electrical equipment for the petroleum industry.
SBA officials said the 53 winners collectively employ 6,000 people and contributed $400 million in revenues to the U.S. economy last year.
Multiplied by the millions of other entrepreneurs across the country, those numbers amount to big political clout, and small-business leaders were enthusiastic about their voices being heard here.
“If the small-business people in this country could become united, they could be the strongest political force in the country,” said James Lagos, a Springfield, Ohio, attorney and activist chosen SBA Advocate of the Year.
“Business owners don’t have any excuse for not joining organizations,” Lagos said. “The federal and state government present a mortal danger to their existence.”
Lagos, who is a member of National Small Business United, a grass-roots political action group, said there is no better lobbyist going to Congress than a real small-business owner.
And more than 150 members of NSBU and the National Assn. of Women Business Owners did just that--converging on the capital to meet with politicians, Cabinet members and high-level Administration officials.
Sen. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) elicited strong applause from a joint NSBU and NAWBO session when he urged members to support his bill that would permit business owners to deduct 100% of their health insurance costs.
“Being able to deduct 25% is good--but not good enough,” said Daschle, who also pointed out that 22% of every health-care dollar pays for paperwork and bureaucracy rather than patient care.
Affordable health insurance, civil rights legislation, mandated parental leave and international trade topped the agenda during a marathon of meetings, ceremonies and parties.
“The last thing we need is for small business-owners to cancel their health insurance,” said Gail Wilensky, chief of the Health Care Financing Administration.
One angry business owner complained to Wilensky that her firm’s health insurance costs jumped from $180 a month per employee to $470 a month. Why? Because one of her workers ran up $200,000 worth of medical bills before he died.
Although they are still struggling to provide employees with health insurance, small-business owners are generally upbeat about the future.
“Small-business owners are more confident about the future than they have been for some time,” said John Galles, executive director of NSBU. “But, many small businesses are still doing their best to survive.”
