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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2010)
Si September29,2010______________ Minority & Small Business Week_______________ Pas^3 Dramatic Growth with Helping Hands Business excels with help from Small Business Administration J ake T homas T he P ortland O bserver by After having owned his own landscaping company for over 20 years, M anuel C astaneda seems to have it made. Pro Landscape Inc. has been ranked as one o f the fastest growing Hispanic-owned busi nesses in the country. It's also made the list o f the 100 fastest growing businesses in the state for the last three out four years in the Portland Businesses Jour nal. C astan ed a w as O regon Minority Small Business Person o f the Year in 2008, and cur rently he has a workforce o f 40 employees. But things weren't always as g ra v y fo r C a sta n e d a , the com pany’s founder and presi dent. In 1986, he and a handful o f other employees at another land scaping company had a big fall ing out with management, ac cording to Castaneda. Castaneda, 43, knew a big investor who was going to buy a big home and needed some land scaping done, and he quickly secured the work for him and the other employees who had jum ped ship. W hen the jo b w as done, w ord had spread on the quality o f their w ork and they found that the other residents o f the neighborhood had jobs for them as well. “Pretty soon we were doing the streets,” said Castaneda. Pro Landscape is now a full service company that special izes in unique water features, irrigation and sprinkler systems, all types o f walls, drainage sys tems, lawn installation, as well as fences, decks, patios, and more. It also does work in hill side stabilization and landslide remediation. T he c o m p a n y 's d ra m a tic growth came about with several helping hands, said Castaneda. One o f the big learning expe riences came from enrolling in the S m all B u sin ess Administration's 8(a) program, which helps disadvantaged busi nesses get experience by work- Manuel Castaneda, founder and president o f Pro Landscape, Inc., took risks to grow his minority-owned business into a national leader. ing on federal projects. bid the project out, and find a He also said his business Participating businesses get sub-contractor for the soil stabi emerged stronger from the ex work from government contracts lization part o f the project. perience, having new knowledge that they normally wouldn't have Castaneda said the project was o f how to do a construction a shot at, and learn how about done ahead o f time and received project that it had never at how to deal with various federal accolades from the city. tem pted before. The contract agencies, as well as the bidding and bonding processes. The SB A •••building GREEN keeps in contact with them regu ::: building SMART larly to evaluate their business plan and offer tips on how to excel. Castaneda also had help from others as well. Shortly after enrolling in the SBA program , he began looking into a bridge project in D epot Bay. The p er son he w as in contact w ith asked him if he could do sheet tile, w hich C astaneda said his com pany w as qualified to do. Everything looked good until C astan ed a realized that the man had in fact said “sheer p ile,” w hich is a com plicated soil stabilization process that his com pany had n ev er a t tem pted. Mercy Corps He called up his SBA pro- International Headquarters g ram -assig n ed m entor, Ted Allen, and explained the situa For subcontracting tion. and employment opportunities, “No sweat,” was his reply. Allen helped him successfully contact Carolyn Wilson at 503-222-4375. also brought in more money to the company and helped estab lish his market position. “You have to take that risk,” said Castaneda o f how to grow a business. -b u ild in g COMMUNITY K U tV w WALSH ZZZZZZ j Construction C o . www.walshconstructionco.com