Javier Navarro thought about starting his own business for six years. So when the Vancouver engineer's position was cut from HP, he became an insurance agent, representing State Farm in an office at International Square on East Fourth Plain Boulevard in Vancouver.
"I wanted to get into insurance and start a great career for myself and I knew I could serve the Hispanic community here," he said.
Navarro knew there was a need for Spanish-speaking and bilingual insurance agents but his clientele has revealed a dearth of business-related services in Clark County that are presented in Spanish.
He said he helps many new sole proprietors get insurance for their businesses, as well as bonding. But Navarro ends up spending much more time with them, coaching them on business planning and recommending business consultants, using resources from the state Department of Labor and Industries website.
Navarro, who is a native of Michoacán, Mexico, plans to hire another employee to offer such services in Spanish for free during specified hours.
"I would love to send them to (the Small Business Administration in Portland)," he said, "but I don't know if there is anyone who speaks Spanish over there."
The local SBA partners with the Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs for such services. But Navarro could think of no place in Vancouver that would be a fit for his clients.
Looking To Connect
Minority entrepreneurs in Clark County have few options for formal networking with their peers. There is a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People located in Vancouver, and a chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens is gaining ground. Many Clark County minority business owners tend to network in Portland – creating more business connections for themselves on the south side of the river, and doing little to break down barriers to local relationships.
Muffin Batiste has been a personal chef in Vancouver for nearly 15 years. Formally trained in Europe at Le Cordon Bleu, Batiste said moving to the Pacific Northwest was like moving to the "biggest grocery basket in the world."
Business has been steady since the beginning – until the recent recession. She is in survival mode, diversifying her offerings to include cooking classes and targeting new client bases.
Batiste networks plenty. But she finds herself driving to Portland. She goes to Partners in Diversity events and cites the African American Chamber of Commerce of Oregon and Southwest Washington, Urban League and the United Way as other resources in Portland.
Events put on by these organizations often shed light on more personal issues for minority business owners, or political issues like the divide between African Americans and African immigrants in the area, Batiste said.
These opportunities, she said, just don't exist here.
At A Precipice
Carol Parker Walsh is principal of Camas-based ParkerWalsh Consulting, a strategic planning and organizational development firm with a focus on helping companies diversify their workforces. She is African American and her husband and business partner, Thomas Walsh, is white.
Both see a disconnect between what business owners say and how that is reflected in their recruiting and hiring and other business relationships.
"There is a naiveté about the unconscious biases in Clark County around people of color," because the region is primarily Caucasian, she said. "There's truly an opportunity to live life and not engage with people of color, so everything that is said and everything they know comes from the media or stories they heard."
Parker Walsh has a law degree and in 2005, completed doctoral work on the topic of black women who relocate to primarily white environments and how that impacts the recruitment and retention effort of local companies. She said this disconnect – even when it is unintentional – is detrimental to society as whole, citing a $215 billion price tag nationally for racial bias and race-based discrimination lawsuits.
But Parker Walsh has hope.
"We are at a precipice with the last election," she said. "We are in a position of really being able to move forward and not go back to business as usual."
Doing It Yourself
Deena Pierott, vice president of the NAACP's Vancouver chapter, also sees a shortage of networking and business opportunities for minorities in Southwest Washington. Pierrot is the president and CEO of Mosaic Blueprint, a Vancouver-based national recruiting and placement service that focuses on diversifying workplaces.
She studies how large companies can create a more diverse supplier chain and how minority vendors can better compete for contracts.
About two months ago, Pierott started the Mosaic Job Café, which convenes every other Monday at the YWCA Clark County and online, hosting about 60 mid- to senior-level job seekers. The meet-ups include guest speakers, resume workshops and other employment-oriented resources, and are open to people of any ethnicity. Most of the attendees are white.
She is also starting a network for "culturally diverse business owners in the region," with an eventual goal of opening a minority-oriented business incubator modeled after the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, which has incubated many startups and has a network of businesses in the hundreds.
Elizabeth Asahi Sato, a Japanese and Native American Camas resident, can attest to the power of the minority business incubator. She started her business consulting company, Rise to Excellence, at OAME.
"Support structures are not built and when things aren't there, we have to develop them," said Asahi Sato, who was named a 2009 YWCA Woman of Achievement.
She networks with her peers at Say Hey NW events for professionals of color in Portland, but in Clark County, the relationships are mainly one-on-one.
Even with all her connections, Pierrot, too, sees Clark County as a bit tight-knit when it comes to business opportunities.
"I think this whole area is a very relationship-based, and kind of a good-old-boy network," she said.
"As minority business owners, we don't have that 4relationship or family legacy to get in the door."
Jessica Swanson can be reached at jswanson@vbjusa.com
