2 Southland Firms Make Dun & Bradstreet List

A San Juan Capistrano contracting services company was ranked the top-grossing minority business in Southern California with fewer than 100 employees, according to Dun & Bradstreet.

Consolidated Contracting Services Inc., founded by Jose Elias Calles, ranked third on a national list of the Top 10 small minority companies by revenue.

The company had $11 million in sales in 1997 and $14 million in 1998.

“I am doing handsprings. It’s a huge honor,” said Calles, who emigrated from Cuba at age 9. “My parents had to start from nothing. To be able to come to a new country and do something, it’s a really exciting thing.”

The company, which builds high-tech “clean rooms” and does other commercial construction, has 40 employees and expects revenue to grow to $20 million in 1999.

Lim Seung Soo, a photographic distributor and wholesaler in Glendale, ranked sixth on the list. Founded by Seung Soo Lim, it posted $6.57 million in 1997 sales.

The list was culled from a new database of minority businesses that offers a rare--though incomplete--glimpse at the thriving minority-business economy. The database includes about 350,000 minority-owned businesses with 100 or fewer employees, a small percentage of the estimated 3 million small minority-owned firms that Dun & Bradstreet hopes to include.

While many minority-owned firms fall beneath the radar of the database, it nevertheless is the most concerted effort yet to document the growing presence of minority- and women-owned companies in the national economy. Each company in the database is identified as black-, Latino-, Asian-, Indian subcontinent- or Native American-owned, setting it apart from databases that infer ethnicity from surnames or lump all minorities together.

Dun & Bradstreet’s overall database includes 11 million businesses. Those that are minority- or woman-owned are being encouraged to report their status for inclusion on the new listing, which also draws on government databases and lists of minority- and women-oriented business organizations, said Terri Knechel of Dun & Bradstreet.

The effort “shows that the market is maturing for hard data about minority economies,” said Joel Russell, senior editor at Santa Barbara-based Hispanic Business Magazine, which publishes an annual list of the top 500 Latino-owned companies in the country. Companies self-report to the magazine for inclusion on that list.

“I commend them. Generally there’s a lack of data about minority economies in the U.S.,” Russell said. “The first tier of interest in minority communities was looking at them as just consumers and often consumers of basic goods.

“Now we’ve gotten beyond that, and companies are starting to look at Hispanics in particular as investors, consumers of financial services and more sophisticated goods. The development of this database is an expression of that.”

Getting the Word Out: Latino-owned businesses are the target of a Small Business Administration effort to funnel more loan guarantees, equity investments and information on business assistance programs.

As part of an ongoing effort to get the word out about SBA products, SBA Administrator Aida Alvarez is expected to sign partnership agreements Thursday with 33 Latino business, professional and civil rights organizations. The agency signed a similar agreement with the Los Angeles-based Latin Business Assn. last year.

Participants at the ceremony in Washington will include the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, National Council of La Raza, Mana (short for hermana, or sister) and the National Latino Children’s Institute.

Virtual Classroom: The SBA has launched a Web site with educational resources for entrepreneurs. The Small Business Classroom offers self-paced interactive business courses in Spanish and English. Topics include Y2K, how to prepare a business plan and how to raise capital. Go to https://www.sba.gov.

Minority Equity: New York-based Black Enterprise magazine and Citigroup have announced the Black Enterprise/Greenwich Street Corporate Growth Fund--a $86-million private equity fund to help finance minority- and women-owned businesses. The fund aims to reach $100 million by spring and will focus on businesses with a minimum annual revenue of $10 million and a proven track records. Investments will generally range from $5 million to $10 million. Interested firms can call Jeffrey Scott at (212) 816-1308.

*

Lee Romney can be reached at [email protected].