A HELPING HAND SBA CAN SPELL S-U-C-C-E-S-S FOR MANY BUDDING ENTREPRENEURS.

Byline: Pam Park Staff Writer

Rudy Hernandez and Michael Miles pictured themselves successful, but taking their Burbank custom photo lab, Color Media, to the next level of development required outside financing.

Viken Momdjian of Moba Inc., a Van Nuys exporter, needed cash to handle a surge of orders from the Middle East.

Fernando Perez founded Quality Surveillance in Ventura to provide measurement, calibration, repair and inspection services to aerospace and high-tech firms. He needed new equipment to meet growing demand.

Miguel DeLeon needed working capital when he took over California Electro Fab after the Sun Valley electronics manufacturer closed. Renamed DeLeon Enterprises, the company later grew to need a larger facility.

These businesses and more found the financing they needed at the U.S. Small Business Administration's Los Angeles district office in Glendale - an office that has led the nation in guaranteeing small business loans for the past four years.

``We're very proud of the fact that our Glendale district office is the highest-volume lending office in the country,'' said district director Alberto Alvarado. ``We encourage businesspeople and those who are thinking of starting a business to come to us.''

Over the past two years, the Glendale office backed loans totaling $1.5 billion to about 4,500 businesses in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Those loans were responsible for the creation or retention of 35,000 jobs, Alvarado said.

Nationwide, SBA financing reached a new record in the fiscal year that ended in September. Small businesses received almost $18 billion in SBA-backed loans and venture capital financing - up $1.5 billion from the previous year- and SBA technical assistance programs reached 1.23 million entrepreneurs. A record 30 percent of all SBA loan dollars went to minority borrowers.

The only clouds on the SBA's performance record arose from government audits reported earlier this year. One showed funds that were supposed to be used to certify the minority status of federal contractors were, in part, used to fund other SBA activities. Another audit showed the SBA's transition from a direct lender to a loan guarantor and its aggressive use of private lenders had lessened its control over the credit screening procedures lenders follow in approving loans.

Agency official Al Stubblefield said the SBA is taking very aggressive steps to provide lender oversight and is looking at its internal operations and tracking systems to ensure that programs are monitored effectively.

The SBA serves a community of about 23 million small businesses that employ more than half of the nation's private work force and generate more than half of the nation's gross domestic product. Small businesses provide about 80 percent of net new jobs, the SBA said.

Area successes who once took advantage of SBA programs include Amgen, a Westlake Village biotechnology giant that came to the SBA to raise capital to continue its research; Orange-based Marie Callender's Restaurant and Bakery, which needed early expansion capital; and Symvionics, a Pasadena developer of flight simulators, software and defense-related products, which used an SBA program to compete for government and private sector contracts.

The SBA offers businesses like Color Media a chance to reach for the big leagues, too.

``We're a very custom, specialized small lab,'' said chief executive officer Hernandez. ``We're not the big guys, but we can do anything they can do and usually better.''

Color Media offers services such as photo displays, murals, trade show displays and fine art reproductions for a variety of clients, including the film and entertainment industry and biomedical companies such as Amgen.

Hernandez, company president Miles and a group of investors founded Color Media in 1986. In 1997, they needed capital to consolidate ownership of the company and keep it competitive in a technologically advanced field.

Hernandez and Miles approached the SBA.

``Fortunately we made a good impression on them at our first meeting with them, and they welcomed us and introduced us to the influential people at City National Bank,'' Hernandez said. ``Businesses need to be assertive - about what their goals are and how they plan to get there, and the SBA is a good vehicle for that. Small business owners really need to educate themselves on what is available through the SBA.''

``It would be foolish not to say that with their help, a dream came true,'' Miles said.

The SBA has loan programs that enable businesses to borrow as little as $500 or as much as $750,000. It also offers technical assistance and a reference library for research, plus individual business consultations and group seminars through the Service Corps of Retired Executives.

There are also a variety of state and local programs that offer loans and resources for small business. Local chambers of commerce can offer information and assistance.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Rudy Hernandez and Michael Miles show off one of the posters they created for a client at Color Media Co. Inc., which got help from the SBA.

(2 -- color) Michael Miles, president of Color Media Co. Inc., and Rudy Hernandez, chief executive officer, show one of their fine-art reproductions to Alberto Alvarado, a representative of the Small Business Administration.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer