Vista Chamber of Commerce member Henry Vasquez, right, talks business with Teresa Ruiz and George Perez during dinner at the Association of Latino Merchants meeting on Wednesday. DON BOOMER Staff Photographer Order a copy of this photo Visit our Photo Gallery

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Vista chamber reaching out to Latino businesses

By: CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer

VISTA ---- Standing before a packed room of Latino merchants last week, Jim Baumann, chief executive officer of the Vista Chamber of Commerce, held up a promotional flier listing 10 reasons to join the business group.

This simple piece of paper marked a milestone for his organization, he said proudly.

"This is the first flier we've ever produced in Spanish, and we're going to be doing more of that," he told attendees, many of whom wore headphones so they could hear Baumann's speech in their native language.

More and more Latinos are choosing Vista to live, work and play, according to population projections, and officials at the chamber have said they are eager to make inroads with this rapidly expanding demographic.

With a population of 94,000, Vista is about 42 percent Latino, according to the San Diego Association of Governments. By 2010, the city is projected to hit 97,600, with Latinos composing 47 percent.

Using a $10,000 county grant, the chamber has joined with the Vista Townsite Community Partnership to organize events for Latino business owners, as well as translate its documents, fliers, applications and Web pages into Spanish.

The chamber recently formed a special committee to act as its "ambassadors" to the Latino community.

Last week, the committee members mingled with dozens of Latino business owners during a dinner sponsored by Comerciantes Latinos Asociados (the Association of Latino Merchants), a bilingual networking group that took shape seven years ago in Escondido and recently expanded its efforts to Vista with the chamber's help.

The informal group caters mostly to small, brick-and-mortar shops and its meetings are in Spanish. Chamber officials have said it fills an important niche, and may one day develop into a springboard for their organization.

"We're all in this to help businesses succeed," Baumann said. "We all need to cooperate and not have artificial lines."

A new approach


Statistics for Latino-owned businesses in Vista are hard to come by, but Kevin Ham, the city's economic development director, said that about 30 percent of the people who approach him for advice on starting a business are Latino.

Of the chambers 500-plus members, however, only 5 percent to 10 percent are Latino, Baumann estimated.

Henry Vasquez, a mortgage broker with Homeowners Financial and chairman of the chamber's Latino Business Committee, said that language and cultural barriers keep many Latinos from taking advantage of established networking groups such as a chamber of commerce.

Members of the Latino Business Committee hope to break down those walls by holding workshops and letting new business owners know what options are out there, Vasquez said.

"We want to make clear to Latino businesses that they're welcome in the chamber," Baumann said. "Nobody has ever told them that."

Baumann added, however, that boosting chamber membership among Latinos is just one part of a much bigger picture. For now, he said, the chamber has a lot to learn about the needs of the Latino business owners and the services that would best address them.

"We don't pretend to be the best provider of those," he said.

Working in concert


A central figure in the chamber's strategy is Bill de la Fuente, founder of a grass-roots merchants group called Comerciantes Latinos Asociados.

In 1999, de la Fuente launched the organization in Escondido to provide networking, mentoring and support to Latino businesses.

"He has the ability to make things happen with very few resources," said Catherine Manis, executive director of the Vista Townsite Community Partnership, a coalition of Townsite residents, social services agencies, the city of Vista, and the Sheriff's Department.

The chamber helped bring de la Fuente's association to Vista earlier this year. He has already held several networking events and built a roster of about 40 members.

Unlike the chamber, de la Fuente primarily conducts his events in Spanish, but "our mission statements are not that dissimilar," he said

Manis said that some Latinos with small businesses look at the chamber as being out of their league and are going to be more comfortable at one of de la Fuente's meetings.

"We could be the jumping-off point," de la Fuente said. "That's the way I like to look at it."

Baumann, who was introduced by de la Fuente at last week's networking dinner, said he left with a handful of business cards from Latino merchants. One of them was from Rogelio Conde, general manager of the family run Conde Tuxedo Warehouse on North Santa Fe Avenue.

Conde said he joined de la Fuente's group several months ago and has used it to network with other Latino business owners.

Until meeting Baumann at last week's dinner, he said, "I didn't really know what the Chamber of Commerce was about. I thought it was more of a political thing."

Now he's considering joining that group as well.

"There's a more diverse group there, not just Hispanics," Conde said. "We want to reach everybody."

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.

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