Small Business Week observed locally

This year's local participation in national Small Business Week festivities is focused on the theme "Building the Future." A central part of the local festivities is the May 8 presentation of the 2002 W. Curtis Strube Small Business of the Year Award, which was established in 1992.

Strube was the dean of the Breech School of Business. During his lifetime, Strube was an outspoken advocate of small business, and he was the founder of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Council. The chamber will present the W. Curtis Strube Small Business of the Year Award to one of five finalists: Allen Filters Inc., Barker Phillips Jackson Inc., Environ-mental Works Inc., Russell Cellular and Signature Bank. According to Sonja Chasteen, business assistance manager for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, an independent panel of judges chooses the finalists and ultimately, the winner.

This year's six-member judges' panel comprises representatives of the companies who received the W. Curtis Strube Small Business of the Year Award in the last three years, representatives from two local universities and a member of the chamber's event committee.

Award nominees are judged in the same general categories each year: company history, business or management philosophy, response to challenges, innovative products or services and community contributions.

Like businesses of any size, small businesses face their share of challenges. But, Chasteen noted, there are different challenges for small businesses that are just getting started.

"For the new business the challenge is usually cash flow, just having enough money in the beginning to keep the business going until they build a customer base, a client base and get established," Chasteen said. New small business owners also lack knowledge and experience about what it actually takes to own and operate a small business.

For small businesses that have been around awhile and have established a presence in the marketplace, Chasteen said the obstacles involving cash flow and inexperience generally have been addressed.

"And then they're facing things like work-force challenges, finding skilled, reliable work-ready workers, and I know that health care benefits for themselves and their employees are a huge issue," she said.

Chasteen said of the chamber's approximately 2,100 members, 88 percent are small businesses. The chamber defines small businesses as those with 50 or fewer employees. Chasteen noted that the chamber itself is a small business.

"I think the award has brought a lot more awareness to the business community and to the community as a whole as to the value and importance of small business to our community and to any community," she said. "It's only natural that larger organizations are more visible, get more attention sometimes, but they are not the foundation of our economy, the small businesses are."