October 09. 2002
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Page B4
Having Coffee and Dessert the
o /îe
¿W a
B y W ynde D yer
T he P or i land O bserver
A nita Sm ith w as born and raised in
northeast Portland. She w atched the
neighborhood change from the African-
A m erican cultural hubub it w as in her
chi Idhood to what it i s now . One day she
decided to stop w atching and take part
in the change.
It was tim e to represent her roots.
“ I got sick o f going into these coffee
Anita Smith, the owner
and president of
Hannah Bea's
Poundcake and More.
She was tired of
seeing the same old
bagels and scones in
northeast Portland
coffee shops and
commented, “Can'ta
sister get some
cobbler or pound cake
with her coffee."
shops and seeing the sam e old bagels
PHOTO BY
and scones,” Smith said, “I m ean, c a n ’t
W ynde D yer /
T he P ortland
O bserver
a sister get som e peach cobbler or
poundcake anyw here these days?”
Smith said she wanted to give back to
the neighborhood - and to herself. H er
We would like to celebrate
M inority Enterprise
Development Week
LEADERSHIP
SUCCESS
by acknowledging the
and
of the many agencies and companies, that include
Tri Met, Multnomah County,
The Housing Authority of Portland,
Providence Health System,
Legacy Health Systems,
Stacy and Witbeck, Inc,
Hoffman Construction
and Baugh Construction
for entrusting us w ith
their goals to develop opportunities and provide superior
capability, building services to M inority and Women busi
nesses in the Portland Metropolitan area. You have raised the
bar for others to follow and meet your leadership standard.
We thank both our clients and the DMWESB businesses for
their hard work, and for being "Good Business" partners and
We make a commitment to continue to work with you and the
many leading edge business organizations like OAME, and
the m inority chambers to achieve greater success, and to con
tinue providing superior quality services in the coming year.
FM B urch A ssociates
F aye B urch -W ilson
G roup AGB LLC
A ndre B auch
parents cam e to Portland from Texas in
tom ers started to ask about the good
way.
her 20s and told all their friends back
But getting her w ay w as n ever easy
looking desserts behind the cosm etics
hom e tocom e out west. Portland was a
and all good things take time, Smith said.
counter. H er poundcake clientele p ro
vided additional incom e for the single
good place to m ake a good living. Hard
and M ore. The espresso, sandw ich and
I wanted to have a place
of my own. I wanted a place
with my music, my culture,
dessert shop located at 3969 N E M L K
my food and my way.
w ork paid o ff in Portland, they said.
Smith w antedtofollow theirexam ple, so
she opened up Hannah Bea’s Poundcake
Jr. BI vd was the realiz ation o f a lifelong
dream for Smith.
tim e to refocus her career goals.
She started to sell her desserts at
contracts w ith M arsee B akeries and
— Anita Smith, the owner and president
of Hannah Bea’s
E m bassy Suites. B ut things w e ren ’t
working out the way Smith planned. She
Sm ith said. “ I w anted a place w ith my
At first, she sold hom em ade pound cake
m usic, m y culture, my food and my
to her cow orkers at N ordstrom s. C u s
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continued
' y f on page B6
by S ean P. N elson ,
T he P ortland O bserver
What kind of advice can Oregon Association of
Minority Entrepreneurs Board of Directors M em
ber and Ampere Electric Co. founder Ed Wilson
give African-American contractors about suc
cess in the construction and electrical trades in
today’s tough economic climate?
He would like to see more African-Americans
enter the construction and electrician trades. Many
think minorities like them just can’t do it.
“They can do it if they think they can. It’s do
able,” he said.
Wilson, 53, founded Ampere Electric, a subsid
iary of Soledad Electric, located at 7500 SE.
Division, in 1992 and has built it from a shoestring
subcontracting operation to taking on such projects
as the lighting for PGE Park and the Interstate
Max line.
Other projects his company has done include
the lighting in front of the NIKE building in North
east Portland; street lighting from Northeast Fre
mont to Shaver on MLK Jr. Blvd. and on
Killingsworth, inside Emmanuel Temple Church;
the Fourth Floor of the Portland Building in south
west Portland; the lobby lights in the Edith Green
Federal Building downtown; and lighting at 23
parks around Portland.
Wilson started out working for the Mainte
nance Division of the Oregon Highway Depart
ment and attending night school at Portland Com
munity College. He earned his Bachelor of Sci
ence Degree in Electrical Technology in 1982. He
then left the highway department and used his
4 0 IK to start Ampere Electric. After working as
a journeyman electrician for 4 years, he took and
passed his examination to obtain his Supervisor’s
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w anted to be m ore hands on w ith her
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deserved raise, S m ith d ecided it was
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“I wanted to have a place o f my own,”
fc T
r-r
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License in 1993.
His sister Jacqueline Cook. 54, shuttles three
weeks on and three weeks off from Berkeley,
Calif, to Portland to serve as his accountant. She
graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in
continued
on page B8