SBA to honor top small-business owners in U.S.

HOMEGROWN: Brenda Brock, founder and CEO Farmaesthetics, at Maplewood Farm in Portsmouth. Brock has been named Rhode Island Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. / COURTESY FREDERIC LAGRANGE
HOMEGROWN: Brenda Brock, founder and CEO Farmaesthetics, at Maplewood Farm in Portsmouth. Brock has been named Rhode Island Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. / COURTESY FREDERIC LAGRANGE

There’s no point telling Brenda Brock that the number of small businesses in Rhode Island has declined over the past few years as they’ve succumbed to state and national economic pressures.
Brock is busy with her Newport-based Farmasethetics line of all natural skin-care products being used in world-class spas, including the Ocean House in Westerly’s Watch Hill, some of the Four Seasons hotels in Florida and California, and her latest customer, the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego.
Wholesale growth is up about 28 percent, the Farmaesthetics shop on Bellevue Avenue is up about 50 percent and e-commerce is up about 15 percent – strong results for a 14-year-old company whose mission is “to preserve open space and bring attention to rural American traditions for health and beauty.”
Consumer interest in natural products and sustainability caught up with Brock’s vision, as has recognition by the business community.
Brock has been named Rhode Island Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. She was scheduled to be recognized at the Annual Rhode Island Salute to Small Business at the Alpine Country Club in Cranston on June 12 and at the national SBA ceremonies in Washington, Dec. July 21. She is one of the winners representing the 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. One of them will be named National Small Business Person of the Year.
Brock’s business success and recognition symbolizes what some might describe as “the strong will to survive” nature of small business in the economic chaos of the past few years.
Rhode Island has between 70,000 and 90,000 small businesses, with that overall number declining by a few thousand over the past four years, according to Rhode Island Small Business Administration District Director Mark S. Hayward. That’s in line with the nationwide trend, he said.
The SBA categorizes businesses of up to 500 employees as a small business. Many small businesses in the state are made up of one or two people and 73 percent of businesses in Rhode Island have less than 20 employees, he said.
“I think overall, small businesses are weathering the storm and for the most part, making it through a difficult economy,” said Hayward. “Those that still exist are modifying what they do to be able to survive. “Cash is the lifeblood of a small business, so some are giving discounts for cash to keep up the cash flow. Some are modifying services or products,” said Hayward. “You’ll hear the word ‘diversification’ a lot when it comes to sustainability of small business.” There are signs that the long-denounced negative business climate in Rhode Island is beginning to change – and that will help small businesses, said Hayward.
“I think it’s changed in the past five-to-seven years since we’ve been shining a light on the small-business community,” Hayward said. “The mindset has changed and there seems to be more of realization that small businesses are crucial to the overall success of the state, and crucial for a vibrant, job-producing economy.”
Some statewide changes and proposed legislation to streamline the regulatory process are signs of a more welcoming climate for business helping to push the turnaround, he said.
“We need to have regulations that are clear, predictable and reliable for the business community in Rhode Island and I think that’s what we’re beginning to do,” said Hayward.
Gary Ezovski, owner of Lincoln Environmental Properties, a small real estate firm in North Smithfield, has experienced the frustration of dealing with state business regulations in the past.
Several years ago he wanted to put in an interior wall to divide office space of 7,000 square feet. A local fire department had 90 days to review the request, while the building department had 15 days.
Permitting for the small project that he thought would be done quickly took weeks.
“They were all nice people,” Said Ezovski. “It’s the system we’ve tried to change.”
Ezovski has immersed himself in advocating changes in permitting and regulations for the past seven years, since he was appointed chair of a committee on regulations, a subcommittee of a small-business summit that was held until 2012.
For their volunteer work to advocate for streamlined regulations and improved permitting processes, Ezovski, along with the owner of STAND Corp. in Warwick, Ronald Caniglia, won this year’s Rhode Island SBA District Director award and was also expected to be recognized at the June 12 ceremony.
“They’ve done everything from review the fire codes to researching online permitting to working on single standards,” which would align standards for the state’s 39 jurisdictions, said Hayward. “Their work has helped to ensure that small business has a seat at the table.” Ezovski and Caniglia have also advocated for the elimination of the restriction on biweekly pay. The requirement to pay many workers weekly discourages companies with multistate operations from coming into Rhode Island, because some may have to set up an additional payroll system, said Ezovski.
A critical piece of legislation under review is the proposal for electronic permitting, he said.
“We’ve been big supporters of electronic permitting to get the whole state into one electronic process,” said Ezovski.
“The window of opportunity opens only a crack these days, for a short period of time,” he said about businesses who may want to move into the state. “If you don’t walk through in that time, it goes elsewhere.”
In addition to Brock, Ezovski and Caniglia, the SBA and SCORE Rhode Island planned to honor several other small-business leaders at the June 12 event.
The small-business awards recognize “hard work and demonstrated success,” said Hayward. “They are the best of the best.”
Brock recalled the winding, often-surprising path that led her to success in her small business.
Raised in Texas, she spent summers and holidays with relatives on farms where she learned in the kitchen the basics of recipes she still uses for her skin-care products.
She spent 10 years acting and writing plays in New York, and happened to come to Rhode Island with a friend bringing a boat to Newport. She met her husband in a Newport restaurant. In 1989, she saw a vacant, old farmhouse in Tiverton, bought and restored it and planted an acre of land.
“That’s when my life started to change,” said Brock. “It’s been described as riding the horse in the direction it was going,” she said of her life path.
In 1999 she started selling her natural skin-care products from a farm stand. Friends told her she had a business, so she got help writing a business plan. With her plantings and investments from family and friends, she launched Farmaesthetics.
“Everything just felt right. It was like everything was lined up,” said Brock. “It was like I didn’t have any choice.” •

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