UTPA business incubator recognized as nation's best
Maria Juarez doesn’t take credit for the gains small businesses see after leaving her center at the University of Texas-Pan American. The real winners, Juarez says, are the Rio Grande Valley entrepreneurs who brave uncertainty when starting or expanding their businesses.
But as a center of information and assistance that provides counseling, training and other services to fledgling businesses, UTPA’s Small Business Development Center is at least a part of their entrepreneurial success stories.
Juarez, the center’s director, and her staff traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to receive the Small Business Development Center Service Excellence and Innovation Center Award, recognizing UTPA’s group as the best out of 1,100 centers in the nation in fostering entrepreneurship and business growth through innovation and efficiency.
Juarez said the small businesses that visit her center are its “greatest stakeholders.”
“We can never say we’re the reason why our small businesses are successful,” Juarez said in a telephone interview before she received the award as part of National Small Business Week festivities in Washington. “What we do is prepare individuals better than they would otherwise be prepared and get them where they want to be faster.”
UTPA’s center completed a banner year in 2010 as it exceeded performance milestones in counseled clients, new businesses started and jobs created and retained. Eighty-eight small businesses were created while 27 were expanded through the center last year, leading to 578 jobs directly associated with the center.
The center’s record success last year and documented achievement over its 25-year existence were the primary reasons it was recognized with the highest honor for small business development centers, said Yolanda Garcia Olivarez, the Small Business Administration’s regional director who oversees the Valley. But it has also developed partnerships with economic development organizations, chambers of commerce, private lenders and other entities to ensure entrepreneurs have access to as much assistance as possible when launching a business.
Located at UTPA, the Valley’s only small business development center is supported by the SBA, UTPA and private and public partners in deep South Texas. It provides free business consulting by a team of seven advisers who evaluate the operations of existing businesses and review a startup company’s plans for potential holes.
“When small businesses are counseled, they tend to do better in creating jobs and expanding services,” Olivarez said. “Maria (Juarez) trains these small business owners and counsels them in achieving what they want to take place.”
The center also conducts training seminars on business-related topics such as marketing, bookkeeping and management that were attended by more than 3,000 people last year. It also helped Valley businesses obtain nearly $13 million last year — nearly double the previous year — through SBA and private bank loans, venture capital and direct investments to start local businesses.
Juarez, a UTPA graduate who has served as the center’s director since 2005, said her 13-person staff is marked by its versatility in addressing a range of its clients needs. The center regularly attracts interest from Mexican nationals looking to begin businesses here, Valley entrepreneurs who want to get involved in exports and displaced workers who need help transitioning from a traditional job to small business ownership.
Joaquin Spamer turned to the center for assistance three years ago when he wanted to purchase a warehouse for Colimar International, a logistics company he founded in 1991 that distributes produce, cotton and other agriculture products in the Texas-Mexico border region. Spamer wanted to purchase a 270,000-square-foot warehouse after years of renting, but he said he found it difficult to get financing at the peak of the recession.
He went to the UTPA center where they directed him to a loan program he used to acquire the facility, saving half the price because of depressed real estate prices. Since it acquired the building last spring, Colimar International has grown almost twice the size.
“(The center’s staff) gave us a lot of business guidance and checked the financial aspects of the loan,” he said. “Every step of the way, if we needed any help or anything else to get this going, they were ready.”
--
Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and legislative issues for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.
