Minority Owned Business

America's black business owners are more likely to own a franchise or a home-based business than other entrepreneurs. Asian-owned firms employ more workers than other minority businesses. Nearly half of the nation's Latino business owners were born outside the U.S. These are just some of the findings of the new "Minorities in Business" study put out by the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. The study estimates that in 1997 there were 3.

The number of minority-owned businesses in the U.S. increased nearly 46% to 5.8 million from 2002 to 2007, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. In the same time period, the total number of businesses increased 18% to 27.1 million. The new data come from the Preliminary Estimates of Business Ownership by Gender, Ethnicity, Race and Veteran Status, culled from the census bureau's 2007 survey of business owners. The same report found that black-owned businesses rose 60.5%, Native American and Alaska Native-owned businesses climbed a combined 17.9% and the number of Hispanic businesses gained 43.6%.

The U.S. Small Business Administration just completed a record year, approving regular loans of $8.17 billion to 36,500 businesses nationwide. That was up 21% in loan volume and 36% in the number of loans from the previous fiscal year. What share of those loans was garnered by companies owned by minorities and women? More than ever before. Figures released Thursday show that 6,757 minority-owned businesses received SBA loans in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, up 60% from the previous year.

Days after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, John W. Murray Jr. was on the phone, cold-calling the head of facilities at devastated Cal State Northridge. He identified reconstruction needs and outlined his minority-owned firm's capabilities, including relationships with larger players. The quick action and solid credentials earned the firm a $15-million contract to help reconstruct the school.

The Justice Department has drafted new affirmative action guidelines that may make it harder for some minority-owned businesses to obtain federal contracts but will open the competition to more white business people.

Sun Computers Inc., a Carson-based computer retail chain and one of the county's largest minority-owned enterprises, has defaulted on a loan and suspended operations, company officials and a major creditor said Thursday. Sun's troubles are the latest sign of distress in computer retailing, which has been rocked by slow sales and pinched by falling machinery prices. Sun, founded in 1980, has been one of the Southland's larger Apple computer dealers.

Minority-Owned Firm Acquires 7-Eleven Licensee: Southland Corp. said the second-largest U.S. operator of licensed 7-Eleven convenience stores was purchased by a new minority-owned company formed by LM Capital Corp. of West Palm Beach, Fla. The company, Convenience Corp. of America, is getting the 7-Eleven licensing rights owned by Contemporary Industries Corp., a privately held company based in Omaha, for an undisclosed amount.

Coors Wins Discrimination Lawsuit: Adolph Coors Co. said a federal court jury found in its favor in a civil lawsuit that charged it was responsible for the failure of a minority-owned business that was a supplier to the brewing company. Felix Burrows Jr. of Chicago sued Coors under the Civil Rights Act of 1991, claiming Coors canceled orders placed with one of his businesses, Great American Tool & Manufacturing Co., because Burrows is African American.

The editor of the Nguoi Viet Daily News stood in front of his office on Moran Street and pointed to a nearby business where newspapers in Vietnamese, Spanish, Cambodian, Laotian and Farsi are printed. Down the street are the headquarters of the Vietnam Economic News, the Little Saigon News, and a software firm specializing in Vietnamese. "This is like Fleet Street," Yen Do said, referring to the former newspaper row in London.

Questions about the future are percolating at F. Gavina & Sons Inc., a family-run coffee company in Vernon. The same is true at Pasadena-based Liborio Markets, which is run by two generations of the Alejo clan: Enrique and his sons, John and Rick. Like hundreds of other businesses across Southern California, these so-called ethnic family companies are thriving. Gavina, for example, has just moved into a new headquarters and roasting plant, bringing seven operations together in one building.

More than three decades into his fight to support small African American businesses in Los Angeles, Earl "Skip" Cooper II doesn't entirely like what he sees. A persistent lack of financial resources, complacency with institutional racism and apathy on the part of young African Americans are undermining some of the progress his generation carved out in the 1960s and '70s, he said.

The number of Latino-owned businesses grew at three times the national rate for all companies from 1997 to 2002, the government said Tuesday. Latinos owned nearly 1.6 million businesses in 2002, a 31% increase from five years earlier, the Census Bureau report said. The overwhelming majority of the new businesses were one-person enterprises, according to the report. Only 13% of Latino-owned businesses had any employees other than the owner. About a fourth of all U.S.

Questions about the future are percolating at F. Gavina & Sons Inc., a family-run coffee company in Vernon. The same is true at Pasadena-based Liborio Markets, which is run by two generations of the Alejo clan: Enrique and his sons, John and Rick. Like hundreds of other businesses across Southern California, these so-called ethnic family companies are thriving. Gavina, for example, has just moved into a new headquarters and roasting plant, bringing seven operations together in one building.

Expanding the scope of his domestic agenda, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt proposed a series of measures Tuesday that would shift federal spending toward minority communities in an effort to increase opportunities that he said "for too long have been denied for too many." The Missouri congressman's proposals represent one of the first efforts by the top-tier candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination to focus on the economic needs of minority voters.

The Supreme Court on Monday dealt another setback to affirmative action foes, turning away a white contractor's challenge to a Denver city ordinance that seeks to ensure more contracts are won by firms owned by minorities and women. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, dissented, saying the court's action suggests its earlier rulings opposing minority business set-asides have "effectively been overruled."

Rolando Herrera washed dishes, broke rocks and sometimes slept in his car in his struggle to become a winemaker. Naming his wine was easy: Mi Sueno, my dream. But Herrera, whose chardonnay was poured at President Bush's first state dinner with Mexican President Vicente Fox, is unusual. The harsh reality is that at many vineyards, minorities are still more likely to be running tractors than wineries. Slowly, change is coming as Latinos, blacks and Asians stake their claim to wine country.

Joining the Cherokee Nation has been worth millions of dollars in construction work to Jon McGrath. The blue-eyed, fair-skinned contractor from Tulsa, Okla., who is 1/64 American Indian, has obtained $19 million in minority subcontracts on the rapid transit system in Los Angeles--more than any other "disadvantaged" firm. McGrath's Cherokee ancestry is the equivalent of having a great-great-great-great-grandparent who was a full-blooded Indian.

Joseph J. Gonzalez, owner of a 5-year-old construction firm, is a happy man: His Way West Construction is quickly growing, and he's working on creating 27 homes in Las Vegas. Things weren't so rosy just last year. Gonzalez's West Los Angeles business was limited to building additions to single-family homes or doing rehabilitation work. He couldn't afford the sophisticated engineering and architectural plans necessary to win bigger contracts.

Clarence Price is a rarity among Acura dealers: He's black. Of 260 U.S. dealerships selling the luxury brand of Honda Motor Co., Price's Bakersfield lot is one of just six owned by African Americans -- a circumstance found throughout the industry, according to a recently released report. Only three African American owners are counted among the 623 U.S. dealers for Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the Washington-based National Assn. of Minority Automobile Dealers said in its report.

Hoping to fill a void created by the pullback of Japanese banks from the California market, a group of Japanese American investors have set up their own bank in Los Angeles. Tucked away in a mini-mall at the edge of Little Tokyo, Pacific Commerce Bank is believed to be the only Japanese American-owned bank operating outside of Hawaii. Backed by 160 investors and $7.6 million in capital, the small bank is hoping to build its base around the Japanese American and Japanese expatriate communities.