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Supporting Minority-Owned Businesses: It's the Smart Thing to Do

  It has been 21 years since President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the very first Minority Enterprise Development, MED, Week. Since then, every President has issued a Proclamation designating a week for minority business owners to gather, speak with government officials, be honored for their achievements, and - perhaps most importantly - share ideas and innovations with each other.
Every minority business owner has a different story. Every minority entrepreneur has taken a different journey to success. Every minority business has something to teach to another. One of those lessons is that minority small business owners all have much in common. For one thing, they have made great strides overcoming tremendous obstacles. In the last 20 years, the number of minority-owned businesses in this country has more than doubled. Minorities own 15 percent of all American businesses. That's more than 3 million firms. More than 3 million factories and stores, consulting shops and construction outfits. Minority-owned businesses are the fastest growing segment of American business today.

Why is that?

It is largely because of their spirit of entrepreneurship, the combination of hard work and calculated risks people take to keep their businesses successful. It is because of people like Karen Say. Karen Say knows very well the challenges and rewarding experiences that minority small business owners face. "They said, 'Go ahead and try it, but I don't think they expected me to have any success with it. I started landing jobs,' says Say, winner of the U.S. Small Business Administration's regional Minority Small Business Person of the Year award.
As she became the president of a company doing business in the petroleum industry, Say encountered the misperceptions that come with being a trailblazer. "Most of the people in this business are middle-aged white males, and when I'm in the room as a counterpart, everyone assumes I'm the secretary. I've had people tell me what kind of coffee they want. There's a whole process where I had to prove myself to be given credibility."
It is also because we are all privileged to live in a nation where that kind of drive and dedication can take you anywhere, where the only thing limiting us is ourselves.
This year's MED Week conference is being held on Sept. 7 to 10 in Washington, D.C. During MED Week, the SBA and MBDA will honor minority-owned and women-owned businesses, and professionals from across the nation. Under the theme "Forward to the Future, Minority Business Enterprise: The National Priority," the conference will provide interactive forums, workshops on business solutions, panel discussions on competitive advantages for minority businesses and two panels moderated by the SBA to discuss Making it in the Competitive Market Place and Making Government Certification Work for Small Business.
My father would have enjoyed MEDWeek. He immigrated to America from Mexico and began his new life as a farm worker in rural Missouri. That was not an easy life, but he was determined to take advantage of the opportunities his new country offered. He understood that this truly was a land where your dreams could come true - if you worked for them.
He was right. My father went from picking potatoes to become a business owner and leader in the business community.
But he didn't stop there. He wanted to help other immigrants live out the American dream. So he started the Kansas City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and was one of the co-founders of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
My father believed in hard work, personal responsibility and calculated risk. And he believed in America. That is why I am so

proud to work for a President who
understands small business. President Bush gets it. He knows that small businesses create jobs and create wealth. He understands that helping small businesses leads to a strong economy and a strong nation.
The President understands that the demographics of entrepreneurship are changing, that the neighborhood is changing and that we should be good neighbors. It's no accident that this administration has accomplished historic results for all small businesses, especially emerging market small businesses.
SBA lending, for example, has shown significant increases in loans to minority-owned businesses. SBA's two major loan programs backed 41 percent more loans to minority entrepreneurs last year. Loans to African-Americans were up by 75 percent; loans to Hispanics were up by 43 percent; loans to Asian Americans increased by 31 percent. And last year's numbers have already been surpassed with a month left to go in the current fiscal year.
Minority-owned businesses produce almost $600 billion in annual revenue. They employ more than 4.5 million Americans, and pay them $96 billion a year. Encouraging and helping minority-owned businesses isn't just the right thing to do. It's the smart thing to do for today's economy and for the future.