Portland District Office Success Stories

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So, what new exploration does an innately creative company look to embark on when it already has a presence in 1000+ boutique retail stores? The world, of course! Egg Press owner Tess Darrow seized an opportunity through the State Trade and Export...

Brazi Bites Share a Taste of Brazil

When Junea Rocha moved to the Pacific Northwest from Brazil to be with her husband Cameron, it didn’t take them long to realize that something was missing. The delicious pão de queijo (cheese bread) that graced their every social...

Mother Earth Reborn

Kim Erion, President of LKE CORPORATION since 1993, has been self-employed for 24 years. Kim got an early start at age 6 selling painted pet rocks to neighbors. She grew up in the woods with one grandfather who owned a saw mill and trucking company...

Dreams Do Come True With a Little Help From SBA

Pete Morones, a bilingual clinical psychologist, didn’t have to think twice about buying a building to house his office. It made sense to purchase a building for his practice rather than continuing to pay rent. Morones now owns his own...

Small Business Owner Exports Earth-friendly Pesticide

Reducing the Risk of Harmful Pesticides: New technology wins export markets. Most pest control programs have a problem: They put too much of a particular chemical into the environment, and much of it is spread without being effective. Residues...

Small Business Achieves Growth with 504 Loan

Drew acquired working knowledge and business savvy while attending high school and college working in his father's business, Eugene Tile Company. After college, he was asked by his father and brother to go into business with them, and they...

Dry Cleaner's Prom Dress Bank Helps those in Need

Jodi and Dan Bittick purchased One Hour Martinizing in Medford in 1998. The operation does dry cleaning, repairs, alterations, preservation and laundry. Both Jodi and Dan worked for big business in Utah and wanted to own their own business. Dry-...

SBDC and Other Resource Partners Help Small Business Owner with Business Plan, Access to Funds

Allen Surgeon had a vision to run a mill efficiently and profitably. As owner of Rogue Valley Fuel, he has been in the wood products industry for 20 years and gotten used to rolling with the punches." When drastic changes hit the logging...

Care-O-Sell Still Going Around

Chris Kodama had been a secretary for 25 years when the arrival of a new granddaughter led her to drive to Boise with her husband from their Ontario, OR, home to look for baby clothes. They found a nice resale clothing store in Idaho. “When...

Portland Business Owner Names SBA's Oregon Small Business Person of the Year

Paresh Patel, President, Courtesy Vending, LLC, has been named as the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) Oregon Small Business Person of the Year. Courtesy Vending, LLC a 13-yr old business founded by Patel at age 17 in 1992...

Pacific Tech Construction, Inc. Winner of SBA’s 2005 Regional and Portland District Minority Enterprise Development Awards

It’s a pretty good bet that Kelso natives Cal Miller and Joe Lane would have been successful businessmen out on their own. But put them together, and you have a partnership that’s turned Pacific Tech Construction from a...

What’s More Organic Than Granola?

Debi Sommars knows all about organic growth. Her business, Portland-based Sommars Ovens, has literally grown one customer at a time. Her product, organic granola, is gaining popularity as the organic-food movement becomes more mainstream....

World Bank Development Projects Create Opportunity for Oregon Exporter

As a student at Oregon State University during the early nineties, Sherlock B. Mahn, a native of Liberia, found a niche in exporting supplies for development projects in African countries. Building on his experience in his father's import-...

For Mobile West Linn Couple, it’s Washing Cats and Dogs

With two dogs and two cats, Dave Faul (left) and his wife, Sandra Yates, are definitely animal lovers. But when Faul suggested they start a business washing dogs and cats in a van parked at clients’ curbs, Yates said, “...

Wallet Guy Finds a Better Tape

Shoppers at Portland Saturday Market have known him for years as the Duct-Tape Wallet Guy. But Garett Croft Stenson is moving on – to gaffer's tape. Seven years after he made his first duct-tape wallet at college in Idaho...

Debbie Brown, Serial Entrepreneur!

Tim and Debbie Brown started their lives together in 1978 on their farm in Nyssa, Oregon. Tim’s parents raised buffalo on their place as a hobby. In 1983 Tim’s parents retired from farming and Tim & Debbie took over their farm and...

Three Generations of Business

Rob Thompson and Ken Riley, owners of Thompson's Sanitary Service, Inc., were named the U.S. Small Business Administration's 2006 Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Business of the Year. The award was presented to Rob and Ken by Leon...

Laura's Studio by the Bay Goes International

Laura's Studio by the Bay is a teaching art studio located on Alsea Bay. The facility is on 20 acres and includes a large barn that has been converted to an 800 square-foot studio area, a full kitchen, full bath facility and a 10-bed dorm....

Portlander's Slippery Fame Turns 40: Entrepreneur Robert Gregg first sold tubs of margarine in 1966

It's a strange day at the office when you find yourself Googling the history of margarine. It gets stranger still when you learn that a Frenchman -- from savory Provence, no less -- invented the buttery-hued schmear; that...

At Home in the Vineyard: Cultivating a winery, an industry and a life

At Home in the Vineyard: Cultivating a winery, an industry and a life is Susan Sokol Blosser’s account of the early days of Oregon's wine industry from her point of view as the co-founder of one of the first Oregon...

For Tommy Ogawa, Running a Business Runs in the Family

One day, Tommy Ogawa was walking on a street in downtown Portland when a woman asked him, "Are you Tom Ogawa?" He told her that was his father. "Well, I went to school with him, and you walk just like him," she said....

High-end Jeans Are Looking Good

Surf Cowboy CEO and founder Jeff Shafer moved his family to Camas, Wash., from Santa Monica, California two years ago. He decided to bring his company’s headquarters with him, citing the region’s deep talent pool for design, its...

The Queen Bee of Creations

Rebecca Pearcy spent years building her specialty handbag business, Queen Bee Creations. She started her business from the corner of her bedroom while she was in high school. Later she studied at a textile and fabric institute in Philadelphia...

John Clark: "I am proof that SBA’s SBDC programs work."

John Clark started his career working in the fast food industry where he quickly rose to management level. During this time, he became experienced in dealing with the same problems that a small business owner encounters such as, dealing...

Cascade Acupuncture Center, LLC Brings Experience and Passion for the Growing Need of Natural Health Care in the Columbia River Gorge

Carola Stepper, Registered Nurse and Licensed Acupuncturist, facilitates and operates a healthy acupuncture business in Hood River and The Dalles, Oregon. As owner and acupuncturist of Cascade Acupuncture Center, LLC, she brings a treasure...

Ernie’s: New Owners, Same High Level Service

New computer software and just-delivered shipments blend with salvaged pump parts and original cabinetry to create what is truly a combination of old and new. Ernie’s Electric and Ernie’s Motors and Pumps were once two separate...

Mama Mia!

As passionate about slow-cooked pot roast and homemade ravioli as she is about perfectly seared foie gras, Lisa Schroeder is a mother, grandmother, chef and restaurateur devoted to providing better-than-authentic renditions of ...

504 Loan Helps Small Business Build its Own Manufacturing Facility

Sam and Minerva Teeny started the oldest pita bread company in the U.S. (Teeny Foods) in 1964. The company baked and sold “Lebanese bread” out of an abandoned bank building in the Montavilla district of Portland. Sam coined...