A major minority: Hispanic businesses are changing Utah ... and Utah is changing for them.

For Leonor Olivieri, owner of Mi Ranchito Mexibachi Grill in South Jordan, business is all about family. Her business is one of six Mi Ranchito restaurants located in Salt Lake and Utah counties, each one owned by a member of the family. "The core of [Hispanic] society is family," she says. "If you want to deal with a Hispanic-speaking person, if you build rapport and talk about the family, you will win their hearts. Relationships grow more slowly, but once you build that trust you have it for life."

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Olivieri has been involved in the family business ever since her in-laws opened the first Mi Ranchito in Orem in 1983, just months before she graduated from BYU with a degree in travel and tourism. Other family members brought culinary experience; Olivieri brought her management and bilingual skills. What she lacked in wisdom she made up for with gumption and enthusiasm; over time, she acquired business acumen and thousands of satisfied diners.

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But it could have been easier. Had the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce--of which she is now a board member--existed back then, she says it would have been a valuable one-stop shop where all of her family's questions could have been answered: how to write a business plan, negotiate a lease, and more. The Hispanic Chamber is just one of a growing number of organizations that are responding to the rapidly increasing demands of Hispanic businesses (see sidebar, "An Economic Force").

Serving the Hispanic Business Community

It took eight years after Olivieri's family began their business for the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to open. Founded in 1991 and based in Salt Lake City, the Hispanic Chamber operated on a completely volunteer basis until September 2004, when Miguel Rovira was hired as full-time executive director. His goal in 2005 is to double the Chamber's present membership of 200 companies. That might sound like a tall order, but according to Robert Rendon, chairman of the Chamber's board of directors and community reinvestment director at Zions Bank, the membership roster has grown tenfold in the past three years. Attendance at the Chamber's monthly networking events reflects the increase. "I remember days when we used to get 25 to 30 [people]," Rendon says. "Now if we only get 100, we're disappointed." Rovira saw a tremendous surge in membership in the third and fourth quarters of 2004 alone, with room to grow. "There are a lot of business owners who are native Spanish speakers, and we truly have not marketed to that group yet," he says.

Chambers of commerce typically serve a particular region, city or town, but the Utah Hispanic Chamber's reach is more cultural than geographical. "Our involvement is on a more expansive level" than other chambers, Rovira says, and his membership roster, though weighted heavily around the Salt Lake Valley, extends to Provo, Park City and Ogden. (Ogden has a Hispanic Chamber of its own; founded in May 2004 with 25 members, it now has 80, according to Joe Reyna, deputy mayor of economic affairs for the City of Ogden and the Republican co-chair of the Utah Hispanic Legislative Task Force.)

Rovira lists four services provided by the Hispanic Chambers that aren't readily available at a traditional chamber: the exchange of business information in a bilingual setting; customer service and training that is personalized to the Hispanic community; increased visibility for Hispanic businesses; and professional diversity.

Membership is not exclusively Hispanic. A number of businesses, Hispanic and otherwise, belong both to the Utah Hispanic Chamber and a local chamber. In addition to working with other area chambers, the Utah Hispanic Chamber is also involved with the Pete Suazo Business Center, formed in late 2002 to serve Hispanic and other under-served entrepreneurs, and the Small Business Development Center.

The first Hispanic Gala, held in December 2004, received far more response than anyone expected. Held in half of the Hilton Grand Ballroom, the crowd filled the room to its capacity of 260 people. "We were shocked," Rovira says. "Ten days after the announcement, it completely sold out. [It was] the first time we had a black-tie event for the Hispanic community." For the 2005 event the chamber already has reserved the entire ballroom.

The Gala kicked off the chamber's Utah Hispanic Business Leadership Foundation, established to focus on the education of area Hispanic students, according to Rendon. Three $2,000 scholarships were awarded from a field of 70 applicants; Rendon says they hope to award 20 to 25 during the 2005 Gala. Students can also work as interns at the chamber. Though unpaid for now, the internships offer students the chance to network--they are given their own business cards--and learn how a chamber functions.

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What Rendon refers to as "our little chamber" has attracted national attention. "That's a fairly significant chamber for a city like Salt Lake City, where there isn't what you would think of as a significant concentration of Hispanic-owned businesses," says Armando Ojeda, president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. The national chamber, which oversees 132 Hispanic Chambers (including Utah's) in 50 states and Puerto Rico, ranks Utah's in the top of three categories according to the stage of a chambers' developmental lifecycle, he says.

Doing Business Hispanic-style

Non-Hispanic Americans, Olivieri says, want to "get to business" right away. Not so for most Hispanics. "In the Spanish-heritage cultures, you spend time getting to know the person you are conducting business with. You spend time getting to know their spouse, their children, their values; because the view is that if you are going to enter into a long-term business relationship, you want to be happy with the union." Also, she says the Hispanic sense of time is slower and scattered, allowing for time to slow down and smell the roses. "A big amount of patience is needed by American businesspeople when they are conducting business with this culture while [Hispanics] learn how business is conducted here," she says. But that's just one difference.

"Most immigrant business owners deal strictly in cash," says Ogden's Reyna. "They do not understand the American banking system well enough to become 'bankable.'" Not that they aren't credit worthy, he says, but they need to know why credit lines, debit and credit cards, SBA loans, and other methods of financing and payment can be beneficial to doing business. "Financial institutions need to invest time and money helping and educating Hispanic business owners on the many services they offer as well as the system as a whole," Reyna says.

Utah banks are beginning to do so. Wells Fargo recently opened the first of what it plans to be many Hispanic-focused branches at 1710 S. Redwood Road; in January Zions Bank did the same at nearby 1635 S. Redwood Road, where the bank also donates office space to the Utah Hispanic Chamber. These branches go beyond having bilingual staff; decor is decidedly different--more colorful than your typical bank--and many staff members are actually bi-cultural, a vital difference according to Wells Fargo's Ascension Vera. "[Customers] want to know that the banker totally understands their culture," he says. "They appreciate the background I'm from because we were raised the same way."

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As a business banking relationship manager for Wells Fargo, Vera is in daily contact with the Hispanic business community, working with branch and sales managers to help Hispanic customers. He says the Hispanic chambers, Hispanic-focused banks, and other development efforts are having an impact. "I've received several comments from Hispanic business owners that this is what we need," Vera says. "They're proud that they're making an impact in the Utah market."

One marketing agency is seizing upon that impact. DPR Communications was formed in September 2003 after its Hispanic founders realized no other company in Utah offered the services they could provide. "We work with companies that are mostly Anglo that want to target the Hispanic market," says Vanessa Di Palma, from Uruguay, who co-founded the company with Chilean Lorena Riffo Jenson. "People try to target the Hispanic market, but one of the issues we run into is the quality of the work. Businesses think if they just make a colorful flyer, that's going to directly communicate with [the Hispanic] audience." Instead of translating English marketing collateral into Spanish, as often is the case, DPR Communications starts the creative process in Spanish and never strays. A strategic partnership with W Communications allows DPR to rely upon that agency's production and creative expertise.

Comments from Rovira suggest that such efforts reflect some characteristics of the Hispanic business community itself. "Hispanic businesses tend to be very proactive when it comes to meeting individual customer wants and needs," he says. "They also tend to be very involved in the community they service and have strong cultural ties to the emerging population."

Looking Ahead

"Way back then I used my instincts," says Olivieri, remembering the days she helped her family get the first Mi Ranchito restaurant up and running. "When you're young, you're very enthusiastic and very courageous, and being cautious is not the first priority. I would have appreciated someone with the experience I now have." That experience includes an MBA in global management from the University of Phoenix, a degree she says she got partly to help contribute to what still needs to be done to nurture Hispanic business development. "There is still a lot of ground to cover regarding the awareness of how to conduct business in the U.S versus how business is conducted in the country of origin of a first-generation immigrant Hispanic business owner," she says. "While it is true that 70 percent of Utah's Hispanic population is Mexican, there are many professional and non-professional immigrants from countries such as Spain, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, who come to Utah and open a business. These individuals and families do not fully understand our business laws and protocol."

To increase membership and further nurture business development, Rovira and others on the Utah Hispanic Chamber's board are working on a program to approach new Hispanic businesses. They first targeted about 50 businesses in Midvale, hoping to form a model that could be rolled out to other communities. However, an open house held in January 2005 did not draw the anticipated participation, due to timing, marketing and other reasons. "We are back to the drawing board on this program," Rovira says.

It's no reason to be discouraged. "We have to take baby steps," Rovira acknowledges. "The Hispanic population only represents 11 percent [of Utah], and of that Hispanic businesses represent maybe two percent overall. This will change, because we are at a growing stage of evolution."

Most important, he says, "It's not a certain surge that is relevant. It's [that] the foundation has been laid."

John Blodgett is editor of Utah Business and contributing editor to Digital iQ.

Hispanic Business Resources

* Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

www.utahhcc.com

* Ogden Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

www.ogdenhispanicchamber.com

* United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

www.ushcc.com

* Pete Suazo Business Center

www.petesuazocenter.org

* Small Business Administration (in Spanish)

www.sba.gov/espanol/

* Zions Bank (in Spanish)

http://www.zionsbank.com/spanish_services.jsp

* Wells Fargo Bank (in Spanish)

www.wellsfargo.com/spanish/

* DPR Communications

www.dprcommunications.com

RELATED ARTICLE: An Economic Force

Every five years, the U.S. Census Bureau releases a survey of women- and minority-owned businesses. Because of the length of time needed to crunch and organize data, the 2002 survey won't be available until spring 2006, leaving us with the 1997 survey to consider. Although available data is now nearly eight years old, a comparison of survey results from 1992 with results from 1997 allow economists to comfortably predict that the 2002 survey will show remarkable growth in the Hispanic sector, the largest and fastest growing category of minority-owned businesses in the United States.

Between 1992 and 1997, the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in Utah almost doubled, growing from 2,375 to 4,740, a number that represented 2.8 percent of Utah firms and 55 percent of Utah minority-owned businesses. (Asian firms rank second: 1.4 percent of Utah firms and 27.6 percent of Utah minority-owned businesses.) Nationwide in 1997, Hispanic businesses comprised almost 40 percent of all minority-owned businesses, and generated $186.3 billion in revenues.

Locally, Hispanic businesses need a greater awareness of their economic impact, says Josie Valdez of the Small Business Administration's Utah office. "Many in the Hispanic business community are not aware of their own power," she says. The flow of SBA money to Utah Hispanic businesses--$28.6 million in loans and contracts in 2004 alone--speaks volumes about their growing importance. These dollars represent a quarter of the SBA's contribution to Utah minority-owned businesses, says Valdez.