Project Pairs Mentors and Minority Proteges : The Chamber of Commerce effort is designed to revitalize the urban business community.

Carlos Mendizabal can hold in one hand all the plans for John Wayne airport: floor layout, heating system, communications network, maps of the boiler rooms.

Thanks to computer-assisted design, Mendizabal has all of that information on a single cassette smaller than those that fit into an ordinary tape deck. He can put all of Southern California’s freeways on three cassettes.

What Mendizabal has not yet figured out is how to ease the growing pains of his 3-year-old company, CAD Pros, which computerizes maps and other data for customers such as Orange County, the city of San Diego and the state Department of Transportation.

That’s why Mendizabal is working with Rex Olsen, who keeps records the old-fashioned way but knows how to write a business plan that makes bankers sit up and pay attention. The men were introduced to each other by the Orange County Chamber of Commerce as the first match in a mentor-protege project for minority business owners.

The project started in January. Mentors must have been in business for at least five years and must commit six hours a month to the protege for at least 11 months.

Proteges must have been in business at least two years and must be minorities or women. One of those who helped set up the project said it targets those groups because they are most likely to contribute to the salvation of the nation’s urban areas.

“The problems we see all around us are due to a deterioration in the job structure,” said Aaron Lovejoy, chairman of the Chamber’s small business executive council.

Some people who are just starting businesses have applied to become proteges, said another of the project’s creators, Bruce Brown, director of council activities for the Chamber. But the program is geared for people who have some experience. The Chamber wants to offer assistance to people who are already aware of the problems entrepreneurs face.

Brown expresses concern, though, about having made only one match to date. Either people haven’t heard about the program, he said, or they’re just too busy to get involved.

“We just lack participants,” Brown said. “We have a couple of mentors signed up but no proteges. We thought it would be the other way around.”

In light of the low turnout, he said, the Chamber may rethink its requirements for participation. The Chamber can be reached at (714) 634-2900.

Olsen and Mendizabal were both Chamber members, and that’s how they heard about the program. The two men are in different types of businesses, which is what the Chamber intended. A mentor, Brown said, might be hesitant to give away secrets to a potential competitor. General business knowledge, he added, translates from one field to another.

Mendizabal, who is 30, realized that he needed some advice when he saw his bank account dwindling, even though his customer base was growing.

“I was owed a lot of money,” said Mendizabal, whose company, based in Irvine, employs 10 people. “I was at the point of frustration.”

Olsen’s business, Executive Horizons Inc. in Newport Beach, contracts with employers to find new positions for laid-off workers. He also consults with entrepreneurs to help them get new businesses started. At 55, Olsen has started three businesses for himself and about 20 as a consultant for other people. He has been involved in a dozen mergers and acquisitions.

He was able to help Mendizabal find mid-term financing. And he suggested some changes that Mendizabal might make in the future, such as putting a management team in place and ensuring that resources are used wisely.

“Soon, someone is going to ask Carlos to perform a contract that will double or triple his business,” Olsen predicted. “I’ll bet it happens within the next year-and-a-half. That’s good news, but it’s not easy.”

Mendizabal said that having someone to talk with about his decisions eases his mind: “I didn’t know what loneliness was until I became an entrepreneur.”

His meetings with Olsen are informal. Often one will call the other to arrange an after-work or breakfast meeting. Recently, they went sailing with their wives on Olsen’s boat.

“We’ve become friends as well as associates,” Olsen said. Helping other people succeed, he said, “is the most fun I have in my work.”