Community Capitalist
By Conrad Dahlson

New USHCC chair David Lizarraga wants to build Latino prosperity in East L.A. and engage D.C.

Genius often means looking at a problem and identifying a solution so obvious it’s amazing no one else has seen it.
The problem that David Lizarraga saw while growing up in East Los Angeles was a workforce dependent on industries outside the intensely Latino neighborhood. “In our community, most of the jobs were outside,” he says. And unfortunately that also meant, “people spent their money outside.”
In the 60s, when the auto and aerospace industries left, the area became a scene of “boarded-up businesses, blighted neighborhoods and forsaken factories.”
But what if the jobs could be inside, if workers and their families spent their earnings in their own neighborhood?
The chance to put idea into action came when, as a young community activist, Lizarraga met Esteban Torres, founder of the East Los Angeles Community Union, or TELACU, a nonprofit community-development corporation. When Torres ran for Congress, Lizarraga took over as TELACU president, and his business model of “community capitalism” was born.
Community capitalism means local businesses hiring local employees and earning funds to invest in local businesses that hire local employees ... and all the while financing community empowerment projects.
“I call the process of creating jobs the greatest social good you can do for any individual,” Lizarraga says.
To make it work, the nonprofit TELACU is supported by for-profit TELACU Industries, including a real estate developer, construction and construction management firm, financial services provider and more. Profits translate into funding for community development. That starts with education; 20 percent of TELACU Industries’ net profits go toward a foundation helping 600 students a year through college. The rest of the money goes to political, economic and social projects benefiting the community.
By doing good, TELACU does well, with $130 million in annual revenues, some $500 million in assets, and more than 1,000 employees. TELACU’s success offers a hint of Lizarraga’s vision for the USHCC as its new chair. His emphasis on community-based private enterprise and empowerment will gain leverage from the USHCC’s procurement clout, its influence on federal small-business policy, and its outreach to local Hispanic chambers by linking Washington to city hall.
Several problem-plagued policies come in for special attention. Immigration is No. 1, of course, with the USHCC seeking legislation that decriminalizes the undocumented and instead helps newcomers on the road to citizenship.
Procurement is another huge aspect of the chamber’s work, providing links with Corporate America for diversity and small-business contracts, and influencing the procurement policy of the biggest buyer in the world, the U.S. government.
One particular sore spot currently being addressed is government agencies’ practice of “contract bundling,” which goes against everything the Small Business Administration stands for. Contracts that individually would be right up the alley of a small business are bundled together in to one big, juicy offer that only a major corporation can handle. Apparently government agencies find that “easier” than dealing with a lot of small fry. That’s another gauntlet the USHCC has taken up on behalf of the Hispanic entrepreneur.
Lizarraga is following his longtime business model of economic growth, job creation and return on investment by promoting new USHCC member services such as insurance policies, the successful TV show Hispanics Today, and other projects still in the works. These in turn will produce new revenue streams for the chamber, which in turn will provide funds for programs that benefit USHCC members. And on it goes. Community capitalism goes to Washington.

For More Information:
On the future business and Commerce missions call the USHCC at (202) 842-1212 or visit www.ushcc.org.