LEXINGTON, KY - For Stephen Hightower the most influential person in his professional life, a mentor who showed him the ropes, offered key advice at just the right time in his development was right at home. "My father was my baseline mentor growing up in our family business. My father's activities showed me the way. However, many African Americans who start companies did not have entrepreneurial activities talked about and lived in the home like I did," he said.
Hightower is part of a family that since 1956 has operated a variety of businesses from a janitorial service to construction to industrial supply. In 1984, Hightower started Hightowers Petroleum as a licensed motor fuel dealer. The company is a kind of a virtual marketplace that provides gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel, ethanol, lubricants, oils and greases in 48 states. Hightower will be the morning keynote speaker at the 7th annual Lexington Bluegrass Minority Business Expo Aug. 5-6, at the Lexington Convention Center. He laments that more minorities do not have the business grounding he received as a young man. "Many African Americans are lacking role models and entrepreneurial activities inside and outside their families and households," he said.
Hightower's key message will be about his company's story "and our growth and how we've managed it in a down turned economy," said Hightower, who is based in Franklin, Ohio, located along I-75 between Cincinnati and Dayton. He will also lecture about what kind of businesses African Americans can engage in that are non traditional and could show growth in a bad economy. One clue to his topic is his urging people to "do something that is not a 'me too' business that is depended on the consumer marketplace."
Hightower said the best piece of advice he picked up was to never stop pursuing the business even if others advise you to give it up and go get a real job. "People can give you ideas but they can't give you passion and passion is a greater key to success than even knowledge," he said.
Many assume that there are few quality business opportunities out there with the economy at a low point, but Hightower thinks the opposite is true. He believes that every time someone loses, someone else gains. "That's a God lesson. Someone loses a contract or opportunity and that means there's a contract or opportunity for someone else," he said. It's worked for his petroleum company which has seen 100 percent growth, year over year for the past three years, and is projected to see the same result in 2009, he predicts. Hightower attributes that to the company "being solid and consistent."
A woman with Kentucky roots will be the luncheon keynote speaker at the Minority Business Expo. Patricia Russell-McCloud, a lawyer by training and a former member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has spent more than 25 years on the international lecture circuit. She attended Kentucky State University and her parents are from Hopkinsville. She has spoken worldwide as well as in Louisville, Lexington and Frankfort. She is now based in Atlanta. "My style is very motivational, substantive and research-based," she said recently, and like Hightower, will "encourage the audience to take advantage of opportunities that are present, prevalent and within their reach."
When a recession hits at the level we have experienced, says Russell-McCloud, all businesses, minority-operated or not, must be more creative, more determined and more strategic in either working together with other liked-minded businesses or in positioning themselves for contracts that might have otherwise been ignored. "Lack of creativity keeps you in the same framework which you've always been willing to work. You've got to dig deeper. How can you fit in without force to explore, discover and participate in new offerings? I've seen businesses flourish because they were willing to do that and those that did not are in a standstill or will fold," she said. In other words, be collaborative, Russell-McCloud said, "No man is an island and, guess what? No woman is either."
Russell-McCloud said federal stimulus dollars are another way for start-ups and fledgling businesses to get going. She advises that first you must locate the stimulus money. "If not now, when? They have a stimulus package coming to each state. This would be the time to do the research for Kentucky to align oneself with that opportunity. You've got to see where your business can best fit with the stimulus money, whether it's restricted, and how you can get into the allocation," she said.
She suggests people focus on exposure, contacts and contracts to bring new business opportunities, to move past the status quo, and to step outside the box. Russell-McCloud also enjoys borrowing a lyric from the song If You're Out There, popularized by R & B singer/songwriter John Legend: "The future started yesterday and we're already late."
More information about the Expo can be found at www.LexingtonMBE.com.