For two years, dozens of Latino entrepreneurs looking to launch new businesses have been getting a helping hand from Primer Paso, a 10-week course on startups, sponsored by the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center.

But now those businesses are maturing, and the people running them are finding they need more-advanced skills to survive.

That’s a problem the SBDC at Johnson & Wales University and social service agency Progreso Latino intend to address with a portion of a $182,000 federal grant the two organizations received recently for work force development in the Latino community.

John Cronin, executive director of the federally funded SBDC, said last week that some of that grant money will be used to establish a 10-week course entitled FastTrac GrowthVenture, which will serve business people who have already gone through launching a business, but have little experience in what to do next.

It’s sort of an advanced version of Primer Paso, which means “first step” in Spanish.

“These businesses – as well as the people – have matured, so they need a higher level of skills,” Cronin said. “This will help these companies with their growth strategies.”

Like the popular Primer Paso program, the GrowthVenture series was developed by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a national organization that supports the creation of an entrepreneurial society through grants and other programs.

The SBDC has already assigned business counselor Tomas Avila – he has been leading the Primer Paso program – to oversee the new bilingual course. The first installment has been scheduled to run from September to December for about 15 clients. The $300 tuition will be covered by the federal grant.

The course will be held at Progreso Latino in Central Falls, at least initially.

“If it works our well, they’ll do it in other places,” said Ramon Martinez, president and CEO of Progreso Latino, which is teaming with the SBDC for the program.

Martinez said the SBDC should have no problem filling the seats in the GrowthVenture series since he continually hears from businesspeople in the Latino community that there’s a need for advanced business courses.

Officials from the SBDC, however, aren’t turning their attention away from inexperienced entrepreneurs.

The grant will also finance four free sessions of Primer Paso – two in the spring for about 50 people, and another two in the fall and winter for another 50 attendees.

The goal of the grant, Cronin said, is to assist more than 200 Latino entrepreneurs with not only the startup and mature business courses, but with additional counseling and business coaching.

“This is an exciting opportunity to increase small-business ownership in the state of Rhode Island,” said U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy in announcing the grant at Progreso Latino last month. “Small business is the backbone of our work force and critical to our country’s overall economic health. It is imperative that we invest in young innovators to help maintain a strong work force and take the lead in growing our economy.”

Cronin said that most of the businesspeople who seek assistance from the SBDC are whites, but the center has put an emphasis in recent years on reaching out to the minority communities, too, because of their growing size.

According to U.S. Census estimates released last month, minorities made up almost 21 percent (218,956) of Rhode Island’s population of 1.05 million as of July 2007, an increase of 1.5 percent over the year before. More than half of those minorities are Latinos (118,960), according to census figures.

Also on the rise is the number of minority-owned businesses in Rhode Island.

For example, the number of Latino-owned business grew 56 percent from 1997 to 2002, to 3,415 statewide with about $200 million in annual sales, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

SBDC officials have said a lack of business savvy among minority entrepreneurs has been a critical obstacle to long-term survival because many of them lack a network of mentors who could provide guidance in running an enterprise.

Under the federal grant, Progreso Latino is slated to receive some business counseling of its own from the SBDC in an effort to strengthen its services, such as adult education and business coaching for Latinos.

Martinez said it’s part of a bigger effort that will include staff development and will eventually lead to a “total new program” and strategy at Progreso Latino.

“We’re going to become a national organization,” Martinez said.

He declined to detail the new program, saying only that no other organization in Rhode Island is doing what he has planned.

“We’re treating them as a client,” Cronin said. “They’re looking to take Progreso Latino to the next level, to the point where they’ll win national awards in their field.”

Cronin said the center will review and revise Progreso Latino’s strategic action plan and assess the needs of the agency’s educational services. In addition, Johnson & Wales students and faculty are expected to lend a hand at Progreso Latino in helping entrepreneurs.

The reworked program will focus on businesses in Pawtucket and Central Falls, where Latinos make up 14 and 48 percent of the populations in each community, respectively.

The partnership between the SBDC and Progreso Latino “will provide world -class education, training and business coaching to hundreds of Latino entrepreneurs who will work with JWU faculty and students to create a more-prosperous future,” Cronin said. •