Celebrating 20 years of Spirit Awards and honoring a great LA mayor
This is a column in two parts.
The first part introduces the 20th Anniversary of our Spirit of Small Business awards, a program we launched in our earliest days and that has enjoyed a unique partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration for two decades.
The second part is a tribute to the late Dick Riordan, the former Los Angeles Mayor who keynoted one of our earliest Spirit awards luncheons, who was a mentor to me and who visited with me for a memorable 75 minutes on the stage at California Lutheran University eight years ago.
First the Spirit of Small Business. The Business Times and former Los Angeles District Director Alberto Alvarado launched the Spirit Awards back in 2003 as a way to celebrate entrepreneurship on the Central Coast, Over the years we’ve also enjoyed support from the SBA’s Fresno District, which includes San Luis Obispo County.
For two decades, we’ve honored around 150 companies and small business advocates. They’ve included the Onnen Family and Santa Barbara Airbus, Travis Mack of Saalex Solutions, Iris Rideau the first Black woman winery owner in California and more recently Precision Construction, a San Luis Obispo-based firm that is the SBA’s California Small Business of the Year in 2023.
Our advocate winners have included everyone from former U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) to Women’s Economic Ventures Founder Marsha Bailey, a member of our Hall of Fame. We’ve been fortunate to have strong partners at the SBA who help us spread the word about the Spirit awards but leave the selections to the Business Times news team.
To kick off the 20th anniversary we’re talking to past winners in a series of stories that begins with the current issue of the Business Times. We’ll have other coverage as we assess the state of small businesses in the summer of 2023.
Nominations are open for the 2023 Spirit Awards at pacbiztimes.com/nominations-spirit/ or via email to Co-Managing Editor for Special Reports Amber Hair at [email protected]. Our special report publishes July 28 but nominations will be closing at the end of June. Our awards luncheon is scheduled for August 17 at the Ritz Carlton Bacara.
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Dick Riordan’s death on April 19 at age 92 got me thinking about his impact on me and the Business Times. He graciously stepped in to keynote one of the earliest Spirit of Small Business Awards luncheons, flying in from Sacramento where he was serving in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cabinet.
After that, I tried to turn up every time I could get to Los Angeles to hear him speak. He was funny, irreverent, and sometimes in trouble but a very successful entrepreneur. He took a risk speaking at our lunch and I appreciated that; I always felt that the economic revival he brought about in LA in the 1990s paved the way for us to launch a business journal on the Central Coast in 2000.
Dick Riordan’s death on April 19 at age 92 got me thinking about his impact on me and the Business Times. He graciously stepped in to keynote one of the earliest Spirit of Small Business Awards luncheons, flying in from Sacramento where he was serving in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cabinet.
After that, I tried to turn up every time I could get to Los Angeles to hear him speak. He was funny, irreverent, and sometimes in trouble but a very successful entrepreneur. He took a risk speaking at our lunch and I appreciated that; I always felt that the economic revival he brought about in LA in the 1990s paved the way for us to launch a business journal on the Central Coast in 2000.
Years later I learned that he and Hall of Fame member Mike Towbes had attended Princeton at around the same time and it seemed to me that maybe Riordan was one reason why Towbes left the east coast to make his fortune in Southern California.
In 2015, California Lutheran University asked me to moderate a conversation with Riordan at the Lundring Center. I watched a bit of it on YouTube while I was thinking about what to write.
He was funny, self-deprecating and his enthusiasm for getting things done despite the red tape came through. His words about entrepreneurs needing to have courage, to keep persevering through all the mistakes and setbacks struck me as just right as we all adjust to the uncertainties of the post-pandemic era.
“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission,” he said a few times.
We’ll miss that friendly face and irreverent attitude. It seems so far removed from the in-your-face politics we endure today.
Somehow, and Riordan knew this, the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship that has defined Southern California’s unique economy, rolls on and on.
Henry Dubroff is the founder, owner and editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times. He can be reached at [email protected].
