COUNTYWIDE : Group Aims to Help Minority Businesses

Lucius G. Tatum achieved a lifelong dream four years ago when he hung out the shingle for his video production company.

But, typical of many newly formed small businesses, Tatum’s Camarillo company, LGT Inc., soon became strapped for operating capital.

With that compelling need on his mind and a fresh batch of business cards in his pocket, Tatum joined about 60 other small business owners for a breakfast meeting Wednesday to help unveil a new venture: the Ventura County Minority Business Group.

The group, sponsored by the Ventura County National Bank, held its inaugural meeting at the Oxnard Financial Plaza Hilton.

Minorities represent one-third of Ventura’s population but control only about 10% of its businesses, said W.E. McAleer, the bank’s chairman and chief executive officer.

The group is intended to “foster greater economic success” among the county’s minority business owners, McAleer said.

David Garza, president of an Oxnard company that designs and makes fabricated metal products for large aerospace companies, said he gets business from across the country but that local financing is often hard to find.

Garza said local lenders tell him “either I haven’t been in business long enough or the amount I want to borrow is too small,” Garza said. His company, OPF Inc., is seeking financing for a new product, a silencer for industrial oil refineries, with possible markets in Mexico, Canada and Russia, he said.

Ventura County National Bank officials said they plan to offer minority business owners access to smaller loan amounts, a special quarterly newsletter and a special series of free, business-related seminars.

Usually, small business owners cannot afford the $400 or $500 registration fees for seminars, McAleer said. The seminars will focus on subjects such as accounting and tax, and will feature talks from successful business owners, he said.

The bank also will endow an annual scholarship for a minority student who wants to study business, McAleer said.

“It’s exciting to be part of this,” said Tatum, who called the bank “a mentor to small business owners.”