Minority Businesses Multiplying : * Ethnicity: The county ranks fifth in the U.S. in the percentage of its small firms owned by members of minority groups, a federal survey shows.

Young Man Lee was disillusioned when the best job he could find after earning an economics degree from Cal State Long Beach was designing furniture in a San Diego factory.

Wanting something better, Lee quit after a year and, with $5,000 in savings, started a business in Santa Ana supplying restaurants with silverware imported from his native Korea.

Like hundreds of other Asian immigrants, Lee, now 46, learned that Orange County was a good place to set up shop--especially for minority entrepreneurs.

A federal survey released last month said Orange County was the nation’s fifth-ranked county in its percentage of minority-owned businesses, with 26,190 such companies. Orange County, where 35% of all small businesses are owned by minorities, is one of California’s top three ethnic business centers, behind Los Angeles County, which has 142,580 firms; but ahead of San Diego County, with 19,342.

The survey--the first time the Census Bureau has combined its reports on Asian, Latino and black business owners--is timely in view of National Minority Enterprise Development Week, which ends Saturday. It shows that Asians, who operate 15,110 companies with sales of $1.4 billion, made up the largest group of minority business owners.

After the initial success of his silverware importing, Lee started a seafood processing company in Indonesia three years ago to import shrimps and crabs from Asia and to export cod and salmon from U.S. waters. And in 1989, he purchased a franchise from Costa Mesa-based Del Taco Inc. to open fast-food restaurants in Korea and five other Pacific Rim countries.

“I noticed that wrapping food in tortillas uses a concept similar to making spring rolls in China and other parts of Asia, and many young Koreans are open to a more Western diet,” he said.

Lee was right. His franchise business took off almost immediately; today, he runs one of the fastest-growing minority enterprises in Orange County. His companies--Lee Chong Inc., Sam Supply and Del Taco Korea Inc.--chalked up 1991 sales of $19 million through Sept. 30, nearly three times their collective revenue of $7.5 million for all of last year.

The characteristics of businesses are similar in the county’s minority enclaves--including Koreatown in Garden Grove, Little Saigon in Westminster and Latino-rich downtown Santa Ana. Most of the businesses are small, family-run enterprises that primarily serve their own respective minority communities.

“Two things are motivating many minorities, especially new immigrants, to start their own business: their lack of English language skills and their realization that no matter how hard they work, they can only earn so much,” said Ho Young Chung, president of the Korean American Assn. of Orange County in Garden Grove.

Tran H. (Vick) Vuong, who owns a travel agency in Garden Grove, said many Vietnamese immigrants owned businesses when they fled their homeland. It takes time for immigrants to save capital and to learn American business practices and regulations, “but once they have enough money and get a handle on the regulations, they start their own business,” Vuong said.

Many Latino entrepreneurs, said Manuel J. Pena, take longer to establish themselves because a number of them are former farm workers unfamiliar with running a business. Pena has a Santa Ana insurance agency that provides liability insurance for small business.

“Many are not the educated merchants we see among other minority groups, like the Koreans and Vietnamese, who came here with the intent to continue their trade,” Pena said.

Demographically, Asians and Latinos combined account for 33% of Orange County’s population. This makes it easier for small businesses owned by members of these minority groups to establish a market for their goods and services, said Dieu Le, president of Nguoi Viet Daily News, a Vietnamese daily newspaper published in Westminster.

According to the census report, about half of all minority enterprises in Orange County are in the service sector, where being fluent in English is not always required.

For black business owners in Orange County, where African-Americans make up less than 2% of the 2.4-million population, having a smaller minority market makes it tougher to expand. But it all depends on your perspective, said Wayne Williamson, a black entrepreneur who operates a real estate brokerage and investment firm in Santa Ana.

Williamson said having fewer than 43,000 blacks in the county motivated him to target the general population, which he contends Asian and Latino business owners will consider once the companies have been passed on to their children.

“I have crossed ethnic lines since I started my business and it’s easier for us to operate in Orange County because we focus on the mainstream economy,” he said.

“While other minorities are comfortable working within their own ethnic groups, they will eventually face dealing with the mainstream U.S. economy,” he said.

Orange County’s Minority Business Community Orange County’s minority population is growing rapidly, and so are the number of minority-owned businesses. The latest Census Bureau survey *, conducted in 1987 and released last month, shows that minority-owned firms make up 31% of the county’s small businesses, and that number is expected to to grow. Los Angeles (1)

All Firms: 142,580

Sales: $11.44 billion

Orange (5)

All Firms: 26,190

Sales: $2.14 billion

San Diego (8)

All Firms: 19,342

Sales: $1.09 billion

San Bernardino (18)

All Firms: 9,712

Sales: $711.83 million

Riverside (25)

All Firms: 7,481

Sales: $466.89 million

Ventura (37)

All Firms: 5,464

Sales: $444.57 million Number after county is national ranking for minority-owned businesses. Total: 26,190 Receipts: $2.14 billion Employees: 19,062 Owned by minority men: 18,785, with $1.76 billion in sales Owned by minority women: 7,405, with $380.95 million in sales Cities with the largest concentration of minority-owned firms

City Number Receipts Santa Ana 3,518 $240.6 mil Anaheim 3,051 $271.5 Garden Grove 2,337 $138.5 Huntington Beach 1,607 $145.4 Westminster 1,482 $127.7 Irvine 1,346 $93.5 Fullerton 1,277 $113.6 Orange 1,151 $84.8 Fountain Valley 1,029 $98.6 Buena Park 953 $82.4

Ethnic Breakdown First number is total minority-owned firms ** in Orange County, followed by receipts: Black: 1,318 ($81.2 million) Eskimo, Aleut and American Indian: 297 ($16.7 million) Asian and Pacific Islander: 15,110 ($1.4 billion) Hispanic: 9,683 ($650.6 million) * The total number of small businesses in Orange County in 1987 (when this census was taken) was 83,268. ** Census counted a small number of minority businesses twice because they fell under two categories. For example, black Hispanics were counted under the categories of black and Hispanic businesses. As a result, the number of minority firms is slightly higher than the total of 26,190 firms. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census