News
Articles
|
Press
Releases | Awards
| Events
Atlanta
Business Chronicle - May 17, 2004
ENTERPRISE
From the May 14, 2004 print edition
NAWBO Awards -- Inspiration of the Year
Hundreds of Business Owners Trace Roots to Harris
Jan R.
Costello
Contributing Writer
When people describe Patricia Harris, they
use words like phenomenal, awesome and tremendous. Harris
has a passionate, contagious commitment to building small
businesses. This enthusiasm and a 20-year track record of
helping people, particularly women, start their own
businesses earned Patricia Harris the Inspiration of the
Year Award from the Atlanta chapter of the National
Association of Women Business Owners. At the age of 7,
Harris worked in her mother's charm school, answering phones
and helping keep the books. Her mother had a variety of
businesses in Chicago -- a beauty salon, a women's boutique,
a travel agency -- and Patricia worked in them all. "I was
force-fed ... business," Harris said.
Yet she was hungry for more. Harris went to
the Chicago Conservatory of Music, majoring in voice
performance. But show business was not her calling, either.
So Harris went back to school and got a second degree, this
time in business. She looked for a way to touch people and
improve their lives. "I became a social entrepreneur,"
Harris said, whose first job after business school was with
the Women's Economic Development Corp. in St. Paul, Minn.,
in 1983. The organization helped women set up businesses,
and it became a model for similar programs.
In 1997, Jane Fonda recruited Harris to set
up a microenterprise initiative as part of the Georgia
Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. The effort led
to microenterprise programs with Goodwill Industries
International Inc. and The Center for Black Women's
Wellness. A microenterprise requires $35,000 or less in
startup capital, no more than five employees and annual
sales of less than $100,000. United Way of Metropolitan
Atlanta Inc. became interested, and that led to the creation
of a new program of which Harris is the executive director
-- the Cobb Microenterprise Center, affiliated with the
Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State
University.
The 12-week program provides a foundation for starting a
business and offers two years of support after graduation.
Since the center started in 1999, there have been 310
graduates, 90 percent of them women, from 10 metro Atlanta
counties.
Carol Scales was in the first class and now
runs a successful sheet metal firm with her husband. "We had
always talked about starting our own business, but we didn't
know how," Scales said. They went to orientation and met
Harris. "She's very inspiring," Scales said. "She steered us
in the right direction, showed us how to fill out SBA loan
papers, found angel investors, and taught us how to write a
good solid business plan." Scales Precision Sheet Metal
Atlanta now has five employees, revenue of $300,000, and a
promising outlook. The Scales still keep in touch with CMC,
meeting monthly with alumni and calling Harris for advice.
"Patricia is very, very intelligent about business," Scales
said. "She takes what she's learned and shares it with
others."
Another center graduate also appreciates Harris' business
perspective. "She's an awesome businesswoman," said Theresa
Harris, co-owner of Jes Us Electronic MBS and Debt
Collections. The firm now has three employees, but it is
expanding rapidly and expects to hire 10 people in the next
five months.
The businesses Patricia Harris has nurtured include day-care
centers, tutoring facilities, interior design consulting,
cleaning and catering services, jewelry enterprises and
graphic design firms. "She puts her whole self into what she
does, and she believes in it very strongly," said architect
Craig VanDevere, who was on the United Way committee that
helped set up the center and is a past chairman of the
center's board. Currently, she's working with the
Association for Enterprise Opportunities to create a plan
for affordable health insurance for microenterprise
employees. She also is working on a plan for the center to
be self-sufficient. She wants to find space for a business
incubator with room for an open market in which people can
shop and support the entrepreneurs. Revenue would be
reinvested into the program. "We have to figure out a way to
support ourselves so that we can keep this tremendous work
going on forever," Harris said.
|
