A dozen West Marin residents participated in a three-class training session for Latino business owners that examined—entirely in Spanish—the necessary first-steps for starting and maintaining a viable business. That session, which was organized by West Marin Community Services and ended last Thursday, represented the first time that a Spanish-speaking business trainer has taught classes in West Marin.
“I said to them in the first class, ‘This is going to be eye-opening,”’ said Fermin Álvarez, who led the session and is the program manager for the San Rafael-based Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center. “This is going to be overwhelming. There are some things you can’t just learn: you have to master them. And that takes practice.”
West Marin is home to a rapidly growing Latino population, evidenced by the region’s largest public school district, Shoreline Unified, where over half of the students are of Latino heritage.
Some of them lost their jobs after Drake’s Bay Oyster Company closed, and have been looking for new work. Luckily, Ms. Romo met Mr. Álvarez, who was already in West Marin researching business-training opportunities through a $30,000 grant from Wells Fargo. They decided to put on the training session.
“We asked what was keeping them from having their own businesses, and they mentioned they didn’t know how,” Ms. Romo said. “That was a big reason: what it takes to start a business in this country.”
Spread out over three consecutive Thursdays in the Dance Palace’s church space, the session focused on several areas, including general business planning, finance management, legalities and public relations. Many participants had already tried their hand at businesses like catering, housekeeping, landscaping and cosmetology; one man had run a batting-cage facility in Mexico. Others were learning skills for the first time, like marketing and self-promotion. And some had no background in business at all, but intended to learn how to start.
One of the younger attendees, Jorge Martinez, told the Light that he plans to form his own construction company within five to eight years. He’s studied construction engineering and business, but first wants to get a job working full-time for an established construction company
“That way I can learn skills and build credit,” said Mr. Martinez, 30, of Point Reyes Station. “A lot of people forget about cash flow.”
Miguel Hernandez, on the other hand, has been running his own housecleaning service in Point Reyes Station since 2010. Originally a cooperative of around 20 housecleaners, West Marin Green Cleaning provides services to Bear Valley Inn, Lingonberry Farm, rentals managed by West Marin Real Estate and private homes. One benefit of having his own company, Mr. Hernandez said, is that he can pay his employees higher salaries, such as $15 an hour rather than the $9-an-hour, under-the-table pay many housecleaners receive elsewhere.
“It’s a difficult change of mind, to be an owner from being a worker,” said Mr. Hernandez, who moved from San Diego to Point Reyes Station in 2006. “It’s hard for me. When you are an owner, you have more responsibilities.”
It’s the added responsibility and technical complexities of running a business that make becoming an owner a daunting proposition for many at the recent training. But Mr. Hernandez didn’t do it without help. While forming the co-op, he learned some of the start-up technicalities from the Canal Alliance in San Rafael and got assistance from Maria Niggle, a social worker with Marin County Health and Human Services. She helped the co-op apply for a business license and found it a tax preparer. When the cooperative dissolved, Mr. Hernandez already knew how to file a fictitious business name, acquire liability and bonds insurance and secure a business license.
Now, Mr. Hernandez supervises an eight-person crew, only three of whom speak English. Over time, he mused, people like himself—with know-how—could become community resources for others hoping to bring a business to fruition.
“I think we can help,” he said. “We can point people to the right place.”
Here is where Mr. Álvarez, along with Ms. Romo, see the business-training model in West Marin taking the next step. Interested local Latino business hopefuls can recognize that there are resources available to them; entrepreneurship might spread like a wildfire, and in turn bolster the Latino community.
“To me, it’s opening a door for the Latino community,” Ms. Romo said. “They might not start businesses right now, but in the future I believe they will. That’s a gain: if they start it, then other people will see that they can do it.”
Next, Mr. Álvarez hopes to lead additional group training sessions that delve deeper into each of the topics covered during the past three weeks, as well as one-on-one private training. Additionally, if enough funding is raised, he wants his center to establish a satellite small-business development center in West Marin, so that a consultant could be on site part time and available for appointments.
“Being a business owner is a life-long learning process,” he said. “It’s something that started in that classroom, but will have to continue. They will have to keep educating themselves, both business-wise and personally.”