‘Til Debt Do Us Part : Entrepreneurs: Experts say couples who become partners make up the fastest-growing segment in the field of small firms.

Around Valentine’s Day five years ago, Don and Maggie West put their young marriage to a very tough test--they became business partners.

The Wests ate, slept and breathed business with each other, she as chief executive officer and he as president of House of Batteries in Huntington Beach. Together they struggled over employees, equipment purchases and every other aspect of their company. Through it all, sales grew 20% annually. And their marital relationship?

“We’ve probably grown 50% each year,” said Maggie West, who is the accountant. “We’re more dependent on each other. I can understand his moods more so . . . because I’m in the trenches with him.”

Don West said: “I have a lot more respect for my wife.”

The Wests represent the fastest-growing segment of the small business population: entrepreneurial couples. Businesses owned jointly by couples now total nearly 500,000 nationwide, nearly double from 1981, says the Small Business Administration.

In Southern California, the number of husband-and-wife enterprises also has grown because the recession and subsequent layoffs have forced many people to start their own businesses or join their spouses at family-owned shops.

While the Wests have made the most of their arrangement, combining work and wedlock has proved to be perilous for others--and it isn’t widely recommended by family counselors. Indeed, Santa Barbara business psychologist Ralph Daniel says being in business together is like “sailing in fast waters.”

“It can be incredibly gratifying, exhilarating,” said Daniel, who has counseled hundreds of entrepeneurial couples during 20 years of practice. “But it can also be stormy and tumultuous.”

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Judy Harman, associate director of Cal State Fullerton’s Family Business Council, recalls a middle-aged couple who had bought a tile business in Garden Grove. The couple had been married for 15 years, happily, Harman thought, until they began to operate the business together.

“They just saw things in each other they never saw before,” Harman said. “Her complaint was that he was less principled than she thought. And his was that she criticized him all the time.” After two years, both the marriage and business dissolved.

“The business did them in,” Harman said.

Sometimes it works the other way, with a troubled relationship upsetting a business. Take Anthony and Claire Maglica, the couple that built Mag Instrument Inc. in Ontario into one of the best-selling flashlight companies in the world. When they separated, Claire Maglica, the firm’s executive vice president, demanded half of the company’s fortune. Last year she won an $84-million judgment in court, but the case is now on appeal.

So what makes for a successful blending of entrepreneurship and amore ? For many couples, it starts by designating separate duties for each other--as Cynthia and Ray Navis did when they founded the Upper Crust, a golf-accessories company in Solana Beach, near San Diego.

The Navises, who met at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and have been married for seven years, built their business five years ago based on her design of a fashionable golf hat. The company expects sales of $800,000 this year.

Cynthia Navis, 29, says she handles the design and production of the products. Ray Navis, 37, takes care of all the marketing and financial work. They drive to work separately and have two separate offices.

“My wife is artistic, and my background is financial,” said Ray Navis. “You don’t have to be good at everything.” He added, “If you’re running a business with a relative, there’s a trust factor you don’t have to worry about.”

Even with clearly defined roles, though, conflicts are unavoidable, especially when it comes to issues of money, management roles and long-term strategy--the three most common problems among family businesses, according to a recent survey sponsored by the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.

Indeed, Don and Maggie West’s problems usually had to do with purchasing, such as when he wanted to produce color brochures at a cost of $40,000, and she balked. Eventually, Maggie West, 39, relented, but only after the Wests took their differences to their accountant, who helped them solve the problem.

“You need outside advisers,” said Don West, 47. “There’s no way you can make the right decisions by yourselves all the time.”

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Frank and Silvia Garcia, co-owners of La Casa Restaurant in Anaheim, say they know each other so well that they can usually avoid arguments at work. “This is red,” said Silvia Garcia holding a bottle of Tabasco sauce. “But if Frank says it’s green, I say ‘OK.’ ”

Smiling, Frank Garcia admits that he blows up occasionally, but only for a short while. “We can’t argue a lot, because if we do, the restaurant goes down,” said Garcia, who at 50 is nine years older than his wife. “And all of our help and our customers would look at us.”

Like most couples in business together, the Garcias say they take their work home with them, talking about the next day’s special and other affairs of the restaurant. But Patty Kishel, a marketing professor at Cypress College, who has written articles on family businesses, advises entrepreneurial couples as much as possible “to just shut the door and say the office is closed.”

At home, “it’s a marriage, not a merger,” Kishel said, noting that couples in business together should consider dating regularly. “You have to work harder to keep the romance alive.”

Stan and Lila Pesner, owners of Elson-Alexandre, a photography business in Buena Park, said their policy is not to talk about business after work. But lately, the Pesners, who have three adult children active in the business, have been struggling with the question of succession--another issue that can come between spouses in business together.

Other than that, the Pesners say they don’t have conflicts because they don’t compete with each other. Ten years ago, Lila Pesner made sure of that.

When the Pesners moved into a new two-story building, her father-in-law suggested that builders make a stairway from Stan Pesner’s office to his wife’s. But she said: “No, I don’t want him coming up to my area.”

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Making It Work

Here are some suggestions on how to successfully blend marriage and business partnerships:

* Equal passion: It’s better if both parties are equally passionate about the company’s goals. Some partnerships form because one is furiously passionate about starting a business and the other becomes a partner in order to share time. This isn’t the best arrangement for the long term.

* Proper roles: Build on strengths by making sure each person’s role plays up his or her best abilities. For example, someone who is good at technical aspects may not perform well at sales and marketing tasks.

* Establish boundaries: Don’t take work-related conflicts into the relationship, and vice versa. Staff and clients will sense it. Likewise, the relationship will also suffer from overlapping conflicts. Resolve problems on both fronts quickly and constructively.

* Take a break: Stay involved in extracurricular activities as a couple, as individuals and as a family. Don’t let the business consume you.

* Work at it: Building a strong relationship takes work. Sit down together and establish a vision statement for the goals and values you want to achieve as a couple (and as a family). Post it as a daily reminder of what’s important in your personal lives as well.

Source: Dr. Jacquelyn A. Freiburg, Family Business Institute, University of San Diego; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times