Steve Rosa had no idea what he was starting back in 1989, when he had “big ideas” about creating a different kind of advertising agency and bought a $289 typewriter that he charged to his credit card.

“Not being very tech-savvy back then, considering that now technology is a huge part of everything we do, I bought a typewriter – a word processor – on my credit card for $289 and started working,” said Rosa, founder, president and CEO of the award-winning Providence-based advertising and public relations firm (add)ventures. “Fortunately, I had bigger ideas than my technology budget at the time and it just kind of worked out.”

Yes, indeed, it “kind of” worked out

for Rosa and his company, which now has 30 employees and has been honored

four times as one of the nation’s fastest-growing businesses by Inc. magazine.

The firm was also recently named by DiversityBusiness.com one of the Top 500 Diversity-Owned Businesses in the United States, and the agency also has received the Blue Chip Enterprise Award, an InnerCity 100 award and several International Summit and Communication Awards for creative excellence.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is the latest to heap accolades on Rosa, naming him the 2008 Rhode Island Minority Small Business Person of the Year at the Minority Enterprise Development Week awards dinner held Oct. 15 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Providence-Warwick. Sandy K. Baruah, acting administrator of the SBA, was the keynote speaker.

“Steve Rosa is a tremendously successful business owner who is an inspiration and mentor, especially to minority and women entrepreneurs,” said Mark S. Hayward, director of the SBA Rhode Island District Office.

Although he said the SBA designation is an honor, Rosa added, “I don’t think of myself as a small business, I don’t think of myself as a minority-business owner. I just think of myself as someone who’s out there like all the other Rhode Islanders, working hard, trying to earn a nice living for his family.”

As far as Rosa is concerned, the lesson others can take from him is, frankly, that it should not make one whit of difference if you are a member of a minority. “I never want people to hire my firm because we’re a minority business,” he continued. “I want them to hire us because we are the best. And, if they find out after the fact that we’re a minority business and it makes them look good for thinking outside of the box and trying a firm that is not mainstream, the credit goes to the client.”

What makes the (add)ventures business model different, Rosa said, is the way “we’ve always tried to go after big companies, we work with very large brand-driven organizations.” That means the firm’s competition is not necessarily here in Providence, but rather on Madison Avenue, in Los Angeles and “sometimes Boston,” Rosa said. “We’re more comfortable competing with the big firms in the big cities,” he said. “Winning against them is what makes us feel really good.”

A graduate of Boston College and an active alumnus of La Salle Academy in Providence, Rosa is a board member of City Year, an active participant with the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and a graduate of Leadership Rhode Island. He is bullish on Rhode Island. “We love bringing work back to Rhode Island,” he said. “We’ve got a Miami office now and we’re doing work in other cities, but whenever we can we bring that opportunity back to Rhode Island.”

The SBA at the Oct. 15 dinner also presented awards to three Rhode Island lenders for providing access to capital to the state’s minority business community. Receiving the gold award for making 15 loans during the federal fiscal year to minority businesses was Coastway Credit Union; the silver award for 11 loans, Citizens Bank; and the bronze for 10 loans, Bank Rhode Island. •