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BusinessTHE HISPANIC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has its networking event at Carolina's Tex-Mex restaurant, the same place where exactly 2 years before, on November the 11th, the chamber was founded by a group of Hispanics who merged the two major business groups at the time: the Hispanic Business Group and the Hispanic Business Association. The members were: Javier Bustamante, Bill Villanueva, Enrique Rivadeneira, Jose Ortiz, Arnie Muñoz, Luis Borunda, and Gilberto de Jesus. On this ocassion, more than 75 people showed up to hear Brian Wilson speak and to see two awards given to Luis Borunda, the President, who received the Achievement Award and Roberto Allen who named Man of the Year.
Talking with Steve Monroe: Larsen puts focus on Hispanic community and quality of life by Henrik G. de Gyor/The Gazette Carmen Ortiz Larsen is president and CEO of Aquas, a technology and information management company, and president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Montgomery County. Larsen earned a degree in physics from Georgetown University. A few weeks ago Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. spoke at the Hispanic Business Conference in Silver Spring. It was a gratifying moment for Carmen Ortiz Larsen, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Montgomery County. The statewide conference addressed issues affecting the growing number of Hispanic businesses in Maryland, and Larsen said the governor's presence helped her group achieve its goals. "I appreciate the governor showed up because it really did compel the media that otherwise would have said, 'Oh, it's another small business event.' They showed up and I think it showed this is more than just a small business event, this is about making a statement that we are a very important component of the state of Maryland and the state of Maryland economy." A native of Ecuador who spent time growing up in Italy and the United States and earned a degree in physics at Georgetown University, Larsen is president and CEO of Aquas Inc. in Chevy Chase. Aquas provides business process re-engineering, data warehouse design and implementation and database applications development and support services. Business Gazette writer Steve Monroe recently talked with Larsen about her goals for the chamber and how she built her business. As one of the main organizers of the Hispanic Business Conference, do you think the conference achieved its goals? We were very happy with the conference. I think our sponsors were wonderful, very supportive, the major sponsors, BB&T, Verizon and Comcast [which contributed $10,000 or more], primarily, were really very helpful as well as some of the smaller sponsors were very active. The conference is about pulling our resources together, and getting together, not just Hispanic-owned businesses, but organizations that want to get involved with the Hispanic business market. We try figure out a way to work together, with government on the federal, state and local level. And also with corporate America. It's two things, in terms of legislation and policy, and the second component would be more procurement and organizations that help with the financing of businesses, that help market and promote businesses, and that support businesses in terms of certifying them for quality. That's an area that I'm trying to push for, to get the small businesses more aware of the importance and relevance of getting certified, not just as minority businesses but also as quality providers and quality suppliers. What are the major things you do for your members, help with procurement and financing? Yes, I think it's about where you get financing, but I think it's more than that. I think if we can create a micro lending group of people that people can have easier access to capital, that's fine. But I think we're going to put a lot more emphasis on relationship lending, looking at partnerships. Instead of going to traditional financing institutions maybe you want to do a partnership with a business that's complementary to yours that may have a stronger financial situation and that can help you fund some of the things you are doing. Your business does a lot with scientific studies and systems. Where did your interest in science come from? I always wanted to be a scientist, an inventor, a discoverer. I believed that was the place I could make a difference to the welfare of mankind, either the quality of life, health issues or living conditions. A great influence was that, while my dad, who was an economist, got a Fulbright scholarship to come to the U.S., a lot of my family was very poor in Ecuador. And as a little girl, we would go and visit every two years, and I saw extreme poverty there, a lot of hunger, the children with very few clothes, and running around barefoot and I just thought there needed to be something done. And that's why I went into the sciences first. And I often thought it was easier to deal with science than to deal with people and it's kind of ironic because now I'm dealing with people more than I am science. When did you decide to start a business? The last job I had before I went into business was with a company called American Management Systems [a business and technology systems consulting, development and integration company in Fairfax, Va.]. They had bought a data center and I was put in charge of taking care of the customer base, answering their questions, providing technical support ... and I became manager of technical support. Then they talked to me about becoming vice president, but at the time, this was 1978, I found myself in an organization that was going through a change. They were trying to sell their data center, there were new people coming in and I thought I had learned a lot and I decided I would go off on my own. There was an opportunity to take a project on, that AMS didn't want to take because it wasn't along the lines of what they wanted, so some people there were happy to refer me for the project. They knew I had made the decision to go off on my own and they recommended me and I was able to get my first job that way. So that's kind of how I started. What was that first project? It was with Computer Microfilm International Corp., for records management, text management. My first check was for $13,000. The next project was an effort to develop a national water quality model for an organization called Resources for the Future. They had funding from USDA and EPA and the Department of Energy to develop a national network to show how pollutants come out of agricultural fields or from industry and how those pollutants behave downstream. It helped me grow the company because we supported this effort from 1979 through 1987. When I first started Aquas it was myself and a programmer, and after that some of people from my old office joined me, and pretty soon we had 24 to 25 people within 18 months. You did well right off the bat? Yes, well the company did real well for a while. For about 10 years our revenue was somewhere around $500,000 a year until about '86 and the economy took a downturn. And when the economy starts tanking what happens is small businesses feel it a lot stronger because the buffer is smaller, so then we had to take a hard look at how we do business. Those are the things you learn. I think that if you can take the hits and pick yourself up and go again, I think that's an extremely valuable lesson. We always paid our people, but what I wanted to do but wasn't able to do then, was provide a successful environment regardless of tough times. And that, for a company that started with zero in the bank, that was a tougher challenge than I expected. So we were looking more at the business end of things -- how can you have better business results by leveraging technology? So between 1988 and 1990 I was doing a regrouping, I was reinventing Aquas. So I went into providing services within the context of a more strategic direction. When someone needs a system set up, I always ask them, "What are you trying to accomplish? What is your business about? How is this system going to serve your purposes?" And I focused on the federal government as a customer, did a lot of subcontracting, and then tried to be on our own as a prime contractor. What was your revenue for last year? Projections for this year? Our revenues last year were around $3 million, and we expect a 25 percent increase in revenues over the next year. What kind of projects are you involved in now, or looking to bid on? Our recent success stories are those we have achieved with the U.S. Department of Agriculture supporting the grading and inspection of poultry products, and with the Veterans' Health Administration, in developing an automated process to manage bioethics consults referral, review and response. We will work with several VA hospitals to develop a version of this software for them to use in managing their bioethics cases and to create a repository of information that can be used as a basis for rendering opinions. In the Department of Agriculture project, we worked with experts from the poultry grading office to design streamlined processes, significantly reduce redundant forms and paperwork, and to identify new and strategic uses of readily available poultry industry information. And one of the things we're doing a lot of now, that kind of merges with what I do outside of my work, is on minority issues. We had a contract with HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development] in looking at what happens with HUD grant money and how grantees are or aren't using minority businesses when they spend money, like in community development. One of the things we're trying to do is do more of that for different agencies. So I think it would be really nice to get more work in that area, so we can come up with an overall strategy. Because what has been missing is ... how do you measure the effectiveness of that [minority business] program? We can talk all day about whether it's important to have minority [business] involvement in community development or not, but unless you have data to support it, you'll always have the other guy to argue that it isn't important. Lt. Governor's MBE Reform Commission Public Hearings Event Type: Outreach Description: Contact: Governor's Office of Minority Affairs 410-767-8232 *** Lt. Governor's MBE Reform Commission Public Hearings Event Type: Outreach Description: Contact: Governor's Office of Minority Affairs 410-767-8232 Friends and Supporters of the Maryland
Hispanic Business Conference 2003, On October 9 and 10 of 2003,
Hispanic businesses in the state of Maryland assembled in Silver
Spring where speakers such as Governor Ehrlich, DBED Secretary Aris
Melisaratos, DHCD Secretary Victor Hoskins, and other dignitaries
addressed the audience. The Hispanic Scholarship Fund Gala
also had a great showing at the Discovery Channel Ballroom. The
workshops pleased audiences with their solid content. From Luis Borunda, Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce The Informant, Volume 4, Issue
#38 -- Wednesday, October 1, 2003 | |||||
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