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Seeing our clients achieve key milestones is what drives our work at BCL of Texas. From startups that have expanded to multi-employee businesses to families buying their first homes, our success all comes down to you.
Before you even have to do a single pushup, all you have to do is spend five minutes with Focus Fitness owner Dave Schulze and you’ll see why his customers seek out his personal and group training services. His inspiration is contagious, and for the owner of a small business, he definitely has a big vision for the future.
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Many of you know that BCL has a new Dallas office - but what you may not know is that one of our BCL customers, a florist, is now in the old BCL space! Martha Banda of Event Stems approached BCL because she was looking for a bigger and more permanent space for her business to grow.
There are many different kinds of business owners out there. There’s the salesman, the organizer, the independent do-it-yourselfer, and more. But the successful ones? They build a team that can wear all the hats. Just ask Jason Herrera, owner of ClearVue Networks, LLC, an information technology (IT) firm that in just the past five months has grown from 5 to 13 employees, a number which is likely to double before the end of the year.
How far would you go to grow your business? Would you drive nearly 400 miles twice a month for 6 months?
That’s exactly what Jazmin Jernigan of Aesthetic Innovations, LLC is doing. Jazmin’s business is a full service marketing firm that provides branding, web design, graphic design, and photography services all under one roof. She drives from Shreveport to Dallas twice a month to participate in Capital One’s Getting Down to Business education and mentoring program, which provides guidance on a series of business topics taught by industry experts. BCL of Texas is the facilitator for the 2015 course in Dallas.
For Amy Morales at Kapeesh Marketing, it took a hurricane to help propel her and her husband’s business to its next stage of growth. After working from their home office for 4 years, the flooding waters of Harvey left the Morales family with a decimated home and home office: no walls, drywall removed, and cement floors.
BCL is known for our small business lending programs, but did you know we also work with partners like city and local governments to help them reach small businesses for grants like covid-19 relief packages? Since the start of the pandemic, we have distributed over $11.5 million in grant relief funding to over 300 businesses.
BCL loan customer Juan Gonzalez and his wife, Monica, have every reason to celebrate. Not only are they expanding the scope of their business, but this week they are becoming American citizens after becoming permanent residents in 2009. “We’re very proud,” Gonzalez said.
Ruth and Arnold Guerra were born and raised in Gonzales, Texas, where they have opened hotels, restaurants, and built homes to meet their community’s needs. “We started with nothing,” Ruth said. Now, they have built over 100 homes in their community of 7,000 people.
I visited the Guerras and we drove around the town, as Ruth pointed out both homes she and her husband had worked on, as well as other neighborhoods of older homes in states of disrepair. Gonzales has not had new home construction in a long time. “Big builders are not going to come into this town,” Ruth said. In a previous subdivision, a builder constructed about 5 homes and then left town, the work unfinished. We drove past a 17-home affordable subdivision of 3-bedroom homes the Guerras built in 2009.
Now, they are building Angel Oaks, a 6-home development for median income families, featuring 3-bedroom ranch-style homes with yards. A longtime customer of BCL, having worked with us in the past for an SBA 504 loan, the Guerra family is now working with BCL’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Texas Community Builders for our new pre-development loan product.
The demand for median-priced new housing in Gonzales is apparent, as five of the Angel Oaks homes have already been purchased, just as groundbreaking has barely begun. Most of the buyers are people of color, and all are first-time homeowners. “People are getting out of renting and into their first homes,” Ruth said.
And as with their hotels, their construction business is a family venture. They’ve taught their two daughters skills in construction, management, and project administration. “In the big city, you get a job and you learn one thing,” Ruth said. She said her daughters are now prepared with a wide range of skills to take on all kinds of jobs.
“I’m really glad that Texas Community Builders is investing in small developers,” Ruth said. “I appreciate that they saw that we have projects that will benefit individuals that probably never would have been able to buy a home. Without Texas Community Builders, we would not have been able to do this project.”
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