2023 SBA Award Winners
Champion! Celebrate! Inspire!
Join us in congratulating the winners of the 2023 SBA Awards for the San Diego & Imperial Counties.
2023 SBA Award Winners
Small Business Person(s) of the Year – Team
Career Marine veteran Drew Simpson entered the construction industry serving as a foreman, estimator, operator, and manager before founding Amerivet in 2017. Drew Simpson, President, and his partners Keith Arnold, Vice President; and Ryan Tisinger, Director of Business Development successfully operate Amerivet, an all-inclusive commercial and industrial construction firm which became fully operational in October of 2019. It now has 75 employees, 50 full-time and the balance are Project Labor Agreement employees. They increased revenues by 4,000% and anticipate doubling again in the next year or two.
The Amerivet team received guidance and assistance from various SBA programs and resource partners to help them start and grow, such as SBA’s Boots to Business Reboot, Monterey PTAC, California SBDCs, including the North San Diego SBDC, and most recently they received an SBA 7A Loan to purchase Amerivet’s main office, in National City, CA. Additional California offices are in Ridgecrest, and Yreka, and their California storage yards are located in Bakersfield, Riverside, Paso Robles, and Lindsay.
As Amerivet Contracting continues to grow, Drew is dedicated to giving back to the community in several ways. As a veteran, he is focused on hiring other veterans as they transition to the private sector by offering training and professional development. The company also contributes to a variety of causes such as Toys for Tots, Christmas Meals for veterans, sponsors sports teams, and school events, as well as donating time and equipment for disaster recovery situations, and more.
Amerivet Contracting has demonstrated tremendous growth, job creation, ability to overcome adversity, expand services, and a commitment to the community they service; both directly and indirectly.
Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year (Team)
Jaime Mautz wrote her company’s business plan as part of her MSBA Degree in Entrepreneurship at San Diego State University and launched Pacific Ink, with her brother, on student loans and credit cards, in 2000, just before graduating. They started by selling ink and toner, from their garage. Jaime’s brother has since left the business, and her husband, Alex, joined it in June of 2001. The business grew fast and when faced with inventory management and funding challenges, Jaime regrouped, restructured, and pivoted to a more economical business model. Since then, Jaime has led the way to establish a government contracting division in the business and negotiated their GSA contract which, has proven to be widely profitable. Pacific Ink is now a global provider of office, janitorial, safety, and industrial supplies to the federal government and other large corporations.
Jaime, a client of the Small Business Development Center since 2001, seeks guidance, as needed to help overcome issues, and grow the business. The Procurement Technical Assistance Center and SCORE have also assisted over the years. Pacific Ink has utilized several SBA loan programs to get established and grow. The most recent being a $950,000.00 7(a) loan from Bank United, in 2018, and two Paycheck Protection Program loans during the pandemic, all of which are paid in full.
The Pacific Ink team, Jaime, and Alex all contribute money, time, and resources to many charitable and community organizations, as well as local schools. Save the Children, Feeding America, 4Community Care, and Westview High School are just a few.
Veteran-Owned Small Business of the Year
Francisco Rivera, a combat-disabled veteran minority, proudly served our country with the Department of the Navy for over 15 years. During that time, he also pursued his MBA and honed his natural abilities in marketing by supporting various soccer teams. Rivera enlisted assistance from the SBDCs in 2017 to start his business and leverage his veteran and minority status. In 2018, he launched Wepa Commercial Cleaning (Wepa), a janitorial services company focused on cleaning and disinfecting services. Rivera has since received advising in the areas of government contracting, strategic planning, and funding.
In 2019 Wepa expanded into the government sector to create a virtually recession proof business model and increased gross revenues by more than 200% in three years. Since 2019 Wepa has won and performed on several government contracts and recently added another for over $1 million. In 2020, they pivoted to include disinfecting services and added supplies to their current services to offset COVID-19 shutdowns. By 2022 Wepa had created nine jobs and plans to hire another ten in 2023.
Francisco Rivera assists kids and veterans with entrepreneurship. He and the Wepa team contribute to Toys for Tots. Wepa Commercial Cleaning also disinfected over 50 homes free of charge when family members tested positive for Covid.
Family-Owned Small Business of the Year
Highland Barber Shop is a multi-generational family business that celebrated it’s 50 year anniversary in 2022!
Antonio “Tony” Camara opened the shop in 1972 to provide a great haircut at a great price. This core value is still at the heart of the barber shop. After Antonio’s passing in 2018 his wife Betty took over until she got cancer. Then Raland, her son, started running the business. Transitioning from being an engineer at Northrop Grumman, Raland needed help, so he sought and received a wealth of guidance from the SBDC in several areas, which helped the business weather the storm and emerge better than ever! It is the longest running barber shop in National City!
During the forced closures in the early stages of the pandemic, Raland took advantage of that time to remodel the shop. He also expanded the shop’s digital presence and clientele and hired more barbers during a tumultuous time for the industry. His team and loved one’s 50th anniversary efforts also produced a bump in business that has continued.
Highland Barber Shop, and Raland Camara, prove that a small business can thrive as well as persist in challenging times. They are true entrepreneurs and small business owners, thus part of the backbone of America.
Rural-Owned Small Business of the Year
Tudor Montague, a graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University and the University of Kansas, started Spirit Mountain Roasting Company, a small batch specialty coffee roaster located on the Fort Yuma Quechan Reservation, in 2015, after extensive coffee roasting training. Spirit Mountain sells online and to wholesale accounts locally, including on the reservation, nationwide, and in Canada.
In 2020, the pandemic shutdowns caused all their wholesale accounts to close. Their online sales kept the business afloat, along with an SBA EIDL loan and counseling from SCORE. Tudor’s social media campaigns generate online sales and he has regained his wholesale customers and acquired several new wholesale accounts. Now a business expansion is needed to keep up with demand. Tudor plans to build a full scale roastery and open a small café on the reservation, which will create full-time jobs for up to 15 workers once it’s running.
Tudor strongly believes in developing and supporting his local community. He serves on the boards of two non-profit organizations, the Native America Humane Society (NAHS) and Native SEEDS/S.E.A.R.C.H. (NSS). He is an advisor for the 2022-2023 James Beard Legacy Network providing mentorship to aspiring black and indigenous chefs and others in the culinary industry. In addition, he donates coffee and merchandise to several native organizations and college groups/clubs to help them generate funds.
Young Entrepreneur of the Year
Soaps by a Chemist owner and mother of three children, Charlotte Reininger Smith has been an avid chemist since early childhood. She founded her business, to share her love of chemistry and to use her chemistry knowledge as a full-time mom. It all started as a hobby in 2019, after, Charlotte stumbled on the chemical reaction of soap, while teaching her children chemistry. She began by selling her soaps from her dining room table doing in-person pop-up parties and posting on local social media pages. In 2020, during the pandemic shutdowns, Charlotte designed her own website, taught herself social media organic marketing and binged on business podcasts. She now offers soaps, and other personal care products such as lotions, lip balms and more on her own website.
Charlotte meets monthly with San Diego & Imperial Women’s Business Center (WBC) advisors to improve her business management skills, which has helped her increase revenue, while finding solutions that allow her to run her business and life more smoothly.
Sharing her business journey through social media, Charlotte, inspires other moms to pursue their business dreams at any stage in life. She is proud to be a stay-at-home mom while pursuing her business dreams during nap times and after bedtime.
Minority-Owned Small Business of the Year
ChargeNet Stations was co-founded by a trio of energy and engineering experts. CEO Venus Jenkins has extensive experience in various energy and water industry start-ups and scale-ups and is enthusiastic about power generation strategic initiatives. She previously led the largest fiber infrastructure deployment in Orange County, California.
ChargeNet is a “CleanTech” AI driven software company that integrates solar and energy storage to reduce utility costs and increase renewable energy usage along with being at the forefront of increasing access and adoption of electric vehicles, particularly in lower-income areas with medically vulnerable populations.
Their software platform creates a seamless opportunity for Quick Serve Restaurants to offer customers a superior EV charging experience in mere minutes. Their hardware-agnostic SaaS platform, ChargeOpt, optimizes EV chargers and renewable energy to transform parking lots into profit centers.
As a start-up company, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, ChargeNet used two SBA Paycheck Protection Program loans to help pay employees in 2020 and 2021.
In addition, former CEO and co-founder Tosh Dutt received over 150 hours of business counseling through The Brink SBDC in the past two years, which has helped him raise over $54M in funding for ChargeNet, increase sales from to $47M under contract for 2023; and grow from three employees to 40, with an anticipated sixty three in 2023.
ChargeNet is making the State of California (and ultimately the entire United States) a better place to live.
Financial Services Champion of the Year
Miriam Torres Baltys has over 20 years of experience in the finance industry. She is an expert in SBA lending and credit and has worked in capacities such as underwriter, business relationship manager, and marketing & public relations director. Prior to joining the CDC SBF, Miriam had an eight-year career with JP Morgan Chase bank.
In her role at CDC SBF, Miriam regularly presents at small business events throughout San Diego County and is a go-to referral for SBA’s resource partners with small business clients in need of microloans and small dollar amount financing. She works closely with potential borrowers, many of which are start-ups or early-stage companies, to educate them and if possible, connect them with the funding they need.
Miriam is committed to supporting small businesses and contributing to economic development in San Diego County. She is a Finance Committee Member with the South County Economic Development Council, is on the boards of other community support organizations and contributes money, and resources to charitable causes such as Shyne San Diego, and more.
Miriam Torres Baltys is a true champion for small businesses. She has the compassion, strength in knowledge and unyielding determination to help people start, maintain, and grow their businesses to their fullest potential.
Small Business Journalist of the Year
Over the last couple of years, new U-T Small Business Reporter Natallie Rocha has steadily yet quickly as well as enthusiastically and thoughtfully provided small business community coverage that informs—including spreading awareness about various small business assistance programs and organizations such as the regional Small Business Development Center Network, which supports entrepreneurs and small businesses through counseling and training programs. She is proactive, prompt, as well as communicates often, clearly, and well the small business information, issues, and thoughts which serve our public and business communities.
As a native San Diegan, she aims to share the stories of local businesses which are not always covered and amplify resources for entrepreneurs in the community. She has won awards for her coverage, including a first-place honor from the San Diego Press Club for a story about small businesses getting priced out of an area due to the development of new, multi-million-dollar biotech buildings. Prior to joining the Union-Tribune in 2021, Natallie wrote about the region’s booming biotech sector and managed special projects for the San Diego Business Journal. As a 2019 Dow Jones News Fund Intern, she found a passion for business reporting while working at Fortune Magazine in New York City. Natallie studied journalism at Point Loma Nazarene University and lives with her family in San Diego.
In addition, Natallie supports her industry by donating to local, nonprofit journalism organizations such as KPBS, inewsource, and Voice of San Diego.
Women in Business Champion
Jaymee Lomax has blazed a trail within the diversity community, over the past twenty-five years, advocating tirelessly for women owned businesses helping over 6,000 access hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private sector contracts. As part of the San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) Diversity team, pre-WBEC- West, Jaymee assisted minority owned businesses especially women owned businesses succeed in the procurement arena helping them secure millions of dollars in contracts awarded.
Jaymee also served as Chairperson for the Board of Directors for WBEC-West and Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, (WBENC). As a volunteer she created many events, programs and strategic alliances that moved WBEC-West forward with over 2,000 WBE certified members and close to two hundred participating corporations and agencies.
In 2018, WBEC-West hired Jaymee. She has since enhanced their Platinum Supplier Program (PSP), which trains and develops WOBs to work directly and effectively with private corporations and public agencies. Jaymee’s tenacity resulted in thousands of women owned businesses becoming successful vendors for SDG&E as well as over a hundred agencies and corporations that recognize the WBE certification including SANDAG, General Atomics, San Diego Airport Authority, DGS, Sundt, Port of San Diego, to name a few.
Jaymee Lomax is a true champion for Women in Business. She is committed to providing education, training and connections to woman owned businesses to be successful suppliers.
Women’s Business Center of Excellence Award
(San Diego and National winner)
The San Diego & Imperial WBC (SDI WBC) is a resource partner of the US Small Business Administration (SBA), hosted by Southwestern College at the Center for Business Advancement in National City. The SDI WBC provides training and consulting for pre-venture, microenterprises, and other small businesses. Their consulting and several of their training programs are offered in both English and Spanish. Two of their biggest successes are their family childcare provider business start-up training, and their Mindset Reset program, which helps women business owners work through unique life and business challenges opening pathways to success. Additional programs are offered to support women entrepreneurs and business owners by facilitating their path to starting, financing, marketing, and managing their businesses and much more. The SDI WBC’s target market is women of color located in low-income communities.
Katty Ibarra, Director of the SDI WBC, is a bilingual small business owner. She is excited to empower female entrepreneurs by leading the WBC, creating programs, providing business advising, and training to secure women’s economic justice and entrepreneurial opportunities. Katty has extensive branding, marketing, and social media experience and owns a binational marketing firm. She has more than 15 years of experience in small business and marketing strategies. Katty is also a wonderful collaborator. She has formed many partnerships, with others in likeminded organizations, which has expanded the SDI WBC’s ability to assist more women entrepreneurs, during their first four years, than it would have with their small staff alone. Katty and her team at the San Diego & Imperial Women’s Business Center have exceeded most, if not all their performance goals since their inception in 2018. We are very proud of the SDI WBC team and we are not surprised that they are an SBA National winner this year. The recognition is well deserved.
Read the U.S. Small Business Administration Announces Resource Partners of the Year press release.
Small Business Development Center Excellence and Innovation Award
(San Diego and Region IX winner)
The San Diego & Imperial SBDC Network (SBDC Network) functions as a unit to provide integrated services to the region. With a network of eight subawardee organizations plus services at Southwestern College, a single service center cannot be isolated for particular excellence. Over the past seven years, significant work has been done to create “One Network” across the region, allowing clients to best take advantage of the expertise, language capacity, and knowledge of the over 100 business advisors in the San Diego and Imperial county areas. While there are “centers” the network functions around areas of expertise, with advising teams focusing on financing, marketing, procurement, generalist/business starts, exporting, or equity financing, etc. Advisors and staff utilize technology to have integrated calendars, readiness questionnaires, and other tools to allow clients to seamlessly move from one expert business advisor to another based on their need, not the service center.
In Fiscal Year 2022, all goals were met and most were exceeded by over 200%. Since 2020 when Daniel Fitzgerald became the Director, businesses have accessed $915 million in capital, 568 businesses have started, 3,055 jobs were created, 48,241 hours of counseling were provided, 1,800 trainings were held, and 10,430 unique clients were served. Daniel and the entire SBDC Network team were immensely helpful in spreading the word about the various COVID-19 assistance programs, SBA’s as well as other funding programs, and helping entrepreneurs and small business owners navigate them to receive funding to survive and recover from the pandemic shutdowns.
The shared guiding principles of the SBDC Network and the SBA San Diego District Office reflect the SBA Administrator’s priorities; meet clients where they are; understand and assist in the access of capital to the underserved; maximize business revenues and profitabilities; and foster long-term relationships. One of the dominant strengths of the SBDC Network is their recognition of the needs of the various business communities and business types in the district area; they are well imbedded in the community.
District Director’s Award for SBA Mission Support
Bob Ragland a member of SBA’s resource partner organization SCORE San Diego, since 2017, is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur, having created and invested in multiple successful start-ups. Bob contributes considerable time and expertise to SCORE San Diego while maintaining participation in his own small business. He is always available to share his ideas and creative thinking.
As one of SCORE San Diego’s most active mentors, he also assists SCORE San Diego in a variety of other capacities, helping them provide a high level of service to our local small business community. He has served as Co-Chair of Client Engagement for over two years. He’s on SCORE’s client intake panel, collecting and assigning incoming mentoring requests to the most appropriate mentor. He leads SCORE’s Technology Team, playing a vital role in keeping the chapter current with SCORE’s national strategies. Bob developed much of the new Engage CRM training used by SCORE’s district. He also created a chapter intranet, Mentor Hub, used for internal sharing of information and resources, which has become a best practice throughout SCORE chapters nationally. Bob is always available to help and strives to meet or exceed the needs of the client in everything he does. SCORE is a volunteer small business mentoring and training organization.
Jill Andrews Award for Staying Power
Stacy’s professional journey began in primary care then moved into a role as a surgical clinical trainer for several medical device companies. Stacy founded Aesthetically Pleasing Medical Spa, Inc. in 2003, after realizing her gift & passion was in aesthetics.
Stacy utilizes WBC and SCORE programs and events to gain business knowledge and expertise. She is also a recent graduate of SBA’s T.H.R.I.V.E. Emerging Leaders Reimagined CEO training program. In addition, Aesthetically Pleasing Medical Spa, Inc. received a $150k SBA COVID-19 EIDL loan.
Aesthetically Pleasing began as a solo practitioner in a day spa providing laser hair removal and photofacial treatments. Gaining her patient’s trust allowed Stacy to move into her own facility within a year of inception. Expanding steadily, despite the recession of 2008, Aesthetically Pleasing grew into a multiple suite lease for several years before moving to a new location and has enjoyed double digit growth year-over-year.
Both Stacy and the business contribute to multiple local causes such as North County schools, Helen Woodward, Casa De Amparo, and Friends of La Posada, most recently.
Over the past 20 years, Stacy has persevered and built a robust aesthetics practice, highly sought by patients seeking to regain their youthful appearance. Once the economy stabilizes Stacy plans to open a second location as a training center.
Anthony Vigil Small Business Advocacy Award
Danetta Jackson is committed to breaking down barriers in state contracting for California’s diverse small business sector and creating more opportunities for underrepresented, small and microbusinesses. Her small business advocacy spans 25 years, and her efforts and accomplishments are too numerous to list. However, some of them include her ongoing expansion of DGS’ partnerships to support minority-owned small businesses with certification, outreach, direct assistance, and education, to help them access state contracting opportunities. She also led the implementation of a voluntary diversity data collection in the state’s Cal eProcure system to capture the demographics of bidders and suppliers to help identify where outreach and support is needed most. Additionally, she organized an internal workgroup that researched and authored a white paper justifying the need for a state contracting disparity study. As a result, the governor recently signed legislation requiring a statewide disparity study by January 2025 to determine where inequities exist in our public contracting system.
One of Danetta’s most recent successes is being selected to serve on the Entrepreneurship and Economic Mobility Task Force under the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development whose mission is to propel inclusive entrepreneurship by recommending policies and programs to ensure that all California small businesses have access to the resources they need to grow and scale. Her participation in this task force will be highly beneficial to entrepreneurs and small businesses throughout the state.