Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current, September 29, 2010, Minority and Small Business Week 2010 special coverage issue, Image 1

Portland observer., September 29, 2010, Minority and Small Business Week 2010 special coverage issue, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextMinority & Sma ‘City o / Roses’ Di Dl áflniTIanb Volume XXXX, Number 38 2010 sp ecia l coverage issue hseruer years or •^community service Established in 1970 Committed to Cultural Diversity w w w .p o rtla n d o b s e rv e r.c o m Wednesday • September 29. 2010 Passing Torch Successful minority entrepreneurship with family ties J ake T homas T he P ortland O bserver by In 1981 a young executive named Sam Brooks was working for the Oregon Employment Depart ment when he decided to take a gamble and open up his own staffing agency after getting strong support from a handful of friends. He took out the money he had saved up for retirement, which was somewhere between $ 14,000 and $24,000, and opened up Brooks Tem porary Associates, the state’s first minority-owned employment agency. Since then, he and his wife, Margaret, have established the Brooks Staffing as a reputable company that employs 200 people in five states. But Sam and Margaret Brooks are preparing to fade into the backdrop of the company as they pass the reigns to their daughter, Simone. Simone Brooks, 35, will be steadily taking over the day-to-day management of the company dur ing the next year and a half. But deciding to take over the family business was something Brooks came to reluctantly. . Starting the business from scratch wasn’t easy, and getting the company (now called Brooks Staffing, which is a division of S. Brooks and Associates) to where it is now took lots of sweat equity and many long hours. The company, which graduated from a Small Business Administration program for minority businesses years ago, has remained steady even in the turbulent economy with a strong mix of private continued on page 4 photo by M ark W ashington /T he P ortland O bserver Northeast Portland s Brooks Temporary Associates is a successful minority-owned company led by Sam Brooks his wife Margaret (left) and daughter, Simone.