Minority chambers offer a guiding hand to entrepreneurs, small businesses

Ken Evans, the president of the Urban Chamber of Commerce, is shown at his office near Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015.

Ken Evans motions with his hands as he passionately describes the growth of the Las Vegas Urban Chamber of Commerce. As small as 100 members just a few years ago, the business chamber — whose members are primarily African-American, has grown to 300 members — some of whom have embarked on trade missions as far as South Africa, Namibia and Poland.

“Small business makes up 80-85 percent of our membership,” Evans said. “We work to point those businesses in the right direction, and also help business to protect themselves.”

A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who became president of the chamber in 2013, Evans is one of several minority leaders making a large-scale business impact both in Nevada and around the world. More than 2,300 combined members in the Las Vegas Urban, Asian and Latin chambers of commerce — including MGM Resorts International, Boyd Gaming and Wynn Las Vegas — bring billions of dollars each year for the Las Vegas economy. The three chambers are among the largest local organizations that focus on helping minorities with business networking, outreach and political representation.

A board member of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, Evans says the Urban Chamber takes a front seat at the political table on issues involving business. Its main areas of outreach include information technology and cybersecurity.

“For countries in Africa, for example, we saw opportunities to bolster the IT infrastructure in South Africa and Namibia, that some of our Urban Chamber members here in Las Vegas might be able to help with,” Evans said.

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Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce President Sonny Vinuya smiles during an interview at the chamber headquarters on W.Sahara Ave. Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017.

Just north of Chinatown, Sonny Vinuya rolls up his sleeves, describing how the Asian Chamber of Commerce has grown to 600 members in his two years as its president. A full-time banker with Nevada State Bank, he runs the organization from its central valley office as a volunteer during his time away from his day job.

Consisting mostly of finance professionals and restaurant owners, the Asian Chamber hosts monthly member luncheons with guest speakers including politicians such as former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, and current U.S. Rep. Dina Titus and U.S. Sen. Dean Heller. The chamber also stages an annual golf tournament to raise as much as $30,000 for 15 scholarships to be given to local graduating high school seniors of Asian descent for their freshman year of college.

With a goal of investing in the future, the Asian chamber also has mixers every other month for its “Young Asian Professionals” group of chamber members age 45 and under.

“We’re here to help the community, plain and simple” Vinuya said. “We want to be that voice for hard-working Asian business owners and those who want to do business with them.”

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Peter Guzman is president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas.

Since taking over the Latin Chamber of Commerce in 2015, former real estate broker Peter Guzman has watched membership skyrocket thanks in part to a concerted effort to emphasize member growth in the construction industry. While many of the almost 1,500 members of the Latin Chamber are also food, beverage and restaurant owners, other members are from industries such as gaming and banking.

“Construction has grown by billions of dollars here in Nevada, and we wanted to be ready to capture it — union and non-union construction work alike,” Guzman said.

In addition to annual construction and business expos that feature almost 10,000 combined participants, the valley’s largest minority chamber also hosts the monthly networking event “Desayuno con Amigos” (Breakfast with Friends) and other regular social events.

Guzman, like Vinuya and Evans, said admittance to a minority chambers is not just for people of the ethnic groups the chambers represent. Membership to the Latin, Asian or Urban Chambers of commerce is open to people of all racial backgrounds wanting to network and do business with people of the respective chambers’ targeted groups.

In the Latin Chamber, Guzman said 24 percent of the organization’s growth has come from outside the Latino community, from Las Vegas business owners wanting to expand not only to valley Latino businesses, but also companies in Mexico and those in other primarily Spanish-speaking countries. With gross domestic product for the U.S. Hispanic population estimated to be growing up to 70 percent faster than that of non-Hispanic groups, Guzman called the Latino sector of business “no joke.”

“If you’re in business, you want to penetrate the Latino market,” he said. “It just makes sense.”

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