Feature Story
The County Times
Thursday, December 4, 2014
14
Small Business Remains County’s Backbone
By Guy Leonard Staff Writer The base at Naval Air Station Patuxent River may generate 80 percent of the county’s economic activity and employ more than 22,000 people but locally-owned small businesses still comprise the majority of companies in the county and combined are the largest employers according to the county’s Department of Economic Development.
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There are 12,794 individual businesses in the county alone, said economic director Robin Finnacom, with 11,522 headquartered locally. Of those that choose to make St. Mary’s County their home there are about 2,000 that offer everyday retail services to residents. “The vast majority of them are locally owned,” Finnacom said of the county’s business base. “That’s something most people would not expect.” Retailers often depend on holiday shopping to make their annual operations profitable but for the past seven years since the national economic downturn it has been a struggle to stay afloat said Kevin Hugel and Melody Hitch, who run the day to day operations of Pam’s Hallmark stores here and across Maryland and Delaware. Their parents Fred and Pam Hugel started the county’s first Hallmark store back in 1986 in Charlotte Hall. “This is our 29th Christmas season,” said Hitch. What has kept their stores open, said Hugel, was their customer service ethic and knowledge of what each individual wanted since the same products they sell often are found in bigger box retailers, which made competition increasingly difficult. “We’re not on-line, we don’t have a web presence,” he said. “All of our dollars
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are from Southern Maryland people just walking through.” Since the economic downturn seven years ago, they have had to operate more efficiently, making careful decisions about what products they stock to ensure a quick sale instead of just keeping whatever looked good in store. “You’ve got to be more careful,” Hitch said. He and Melody credit their loyal customer base with their continued success and their longtime employees who often know customers by name. “They’ve been here a long time and they know everyone who walks through the door,” Hugel said. Hitch said the 11 stores her family owns employees about 120 people, the stores in Southern Maryland alone employee about 80. “Having the local, loyal employees who know their customers is really important,” she said, adding that some of her employees had been with her for at least a decade. Shopping locally meant keeping dollars in the county economy, Hugel said. “At the end of the day our money stays here locally,” he said. “When you shop at big boxes your money is going to Arkansas or wherever by sundown.”
Photos by Frank Marquart
Bill Scarafia, CEO of the St. Mary’s County Chamber of Commerce, said small businesses will continue to be a critical part of the local economy despite the weight of the work on the navy base. “The small businesses provide more jobs in the aggregate than the large ones,” Scarafia said. “They provide more job opportunities and services and products than if we had solely big box stores.” Small business in Maryland remains an important part of the state’s economy even considering the state’s general dependence on dollars from federal government activities. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) profile of Maryland there were more than half a million small businesses in the state with 103,904 that are actually able to hire nearly 1.1 million employees. Also small businesses make up 97.5 percent of all employers in the state, according to the SBA, and created 21,556 new net jobs in 2011. Most small businesses in the state are sole proprietorships with annual income from those proprietorships increasing 7 percent late in 2103 totaling to $24.6 billion. guyleonard@countytimes.net