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Agencies reach, but still miss some Latino businesses

Friday, Aug. 4, 2006

A lack of information, plus skepticism and a language barrier, have kept many Latino-owned businesses from taking advantage of various county programs and services meant to help them succeed, say county business specialists who are trying to get the word out about their services.

Business development specialists all over Montgomery County agree that helping minority-owned businesses is crucial to the county’ economic growth. County agencies and organizations, including the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development and the Wheaton Redevelopment Program, are getting together to spread knowledge about their services. The outreach includes seminars, workshops and door-to-door meetings.

However, many Latinos in the community do not know these programs exist, which everyone agrees is a problem.

‘‘I know that [my restaurant] has to become more bankable in order for us to grow and expand,” said Oscar Chicas, owner of Sergio’s Place, a Wheaton eatery that specializes in Salvadoran and other Latin American food. ‘‘To me, [that’s] something that most of my colleagues kind of don’t get, and I understand why.”

Chicas said Latino entrepreneurs in the community know about seminars and workshops but do not take advantage of them. Often those owners lack information and a connection to what the county has to offer, he said.

Chicas, on the other hand, has used the county’s programs and has catered many workshops and seminars for the Latino small-business community.

To get other Latino business owners involved, Joe Davis, director of the Wheaton Redevelopment Center, met with many of the organizations and developed ways to consolidate and work together.

One of the first steps will be to create a comprehensive calendar with all the organizations’ events and workshops.

‘‘With the changes that are going to be happening [with redevelopment], we think it’s important to give every opportunity to our businesses to improve,” Davis said.

Alejandro Mendoza, who owns an accounting firm in the Wheaton Business Innovation Center incubator, said people must realize that the organizations are not competing with each other any more and are offering services together.

‘‘Yes, we do have a little crisis in that we do need to do a little more outreach in the Latino community,” he said. ‘‘Most believe that these programs are not available.”

Mendoza said he learned about the Wheaton incubator through relationships with Montgomery College, where he taught in the Hispanic Business and Training Institute.

Alvaro DeMoya, a business development specialist with the county Department of Economic Development, said businesses also hear of the services through walking tours he leads and word of mouth. Through these face-to-face contacts, he said, small businesses become much less leery of government help.

He said his personal outreach does seem to help and that he receives between 20 and 30 calls a week from Latinos and others interested in small business.

DeMoya, a former instructor at Montgomery College’s Hispanic business institute, said the program helps immigrants learn about business in America versus that of their native countries.

The program is the only one in the state that offers noncredit business courses taught in Spanish. Director Liliana Arango said the program really entices more people to learn skills they might not have been comfortable learning in English.

Courses include accounting, an entrepreneur class, a home improvement class and a loan officer class.

‘‘The fact is that even though so many people speak English, they prefer to learn in their own language,” Arango said. ‘‘It is easier and more comfortable.”

Arango also emphasized that immigrants share a bond with many of their professors, many of whom are immigrants and may have faced similar challenges.

‘‘In one way or another, we have all gone through difficult times so that gives us a sense of community,” she said.

Devance Walker Jr., manager of small-business services in the county’s economic development department, said that through experiences in Silver Spring, his department is much more aware of challenges that small businesses face as a result of redevelopment.

His agency and many of its partners have begun visiting Wheaton business owners to spread the word about possible redevelopment and how they can make their businesses grow in such an environment. This is particularly important to Latino-owned businesses, as they make up one-third of the small businesses in Wheaton, Walker said.

‘‘We have become more aggressive in Wheaton to try to convince businesses that there will be change,” Walker said. ‘‘We want to be more proactive in Wheaton because Silver Spring development brought challenges. ... But we warned them.”