L.A.’s Hector Barreto Tapped to Head SBA

President Bush on Monday nominated Hector V. Barreto, a Los Angeles entrepreneur and former chairman of the Latin Business Assn., to head the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The Bush administration also announced the nomination of conservative economist R. Glenn Hubbard to chair the White House Council of Economic Advisors, adding a prominent academic to fill a gaping hole in Bush’s economic team.

If the Senate confirms Barreto’s appointment, local business leaders predicted he would be a strong advocate for small businesses and would help energize an agency that has been criticized as slow moving. Barreto, however, has no formal government experience.

“If anyone can make changes within the SBA to make it more proactive, more innovative, to get more results, Hector is the man for the job,” said Richard Amador, president and chief executive of CHARO Community Development Corp., which serves small businesses in East Los Angeles. “This is one of the fastest-growing areas of the country, and it’s been one of the most neglected, not only by the SBA, but by others.”

Ruth Lopez Williams, who replaced Barreto as chair of the Latin Business Assn. last year, noted that Barreto would be the first SBA administrator from the West Coast.

“He knows how to keep the small-business community visible. He has strong public relations skills, and he is efficient,” she said.

In 1986, Barreto founded Barreto Insurance & Financial Services Inc., a Los Angeles-based employee benefits firm that generates an estimated $3 million in revenue. His other business is a securities broker-dealer specializing in retirement planning called Telacu/Barreto Financial Services Inc.

Barreto was co-chairman of the Bush campaign in California and in October was named vice chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. That organization, the largest Latino business organization in the country, representing 1.5 million Latino businesses, was founded by his father.

Although Barreto could not be reached for comment Monday, remarks he made about Bush while addressing the GOP convention last year give some clue to his priorities.

“The governor actually had a business, had a payroll,” Barreto said. “One of us is finally running for president. Bush stands for reducing the taxes on small businesses, limiting government regulation and instituting fair tort reform.”

He added: “I’ve worked hard to build my business from just me to 10 employees, and I want my company to keep on growing. And when I retire, I hope to pass it on to my children. . . . With [Bush] in the White House, every American will have the chance to share in the prosperity and the promise of the American dream.”

Barreto seems to have lived that dream. His father, Hector Barreto Sr., an immigrant from Guadalajara, started a Kansas City, Mo., restaurant and then helped start the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in 1979.

With the appointment of Hubbard to the Council of Economic Advisors, it is increasingly likely that another academic, Stanford University’s John Taylor, will become the Treasury Department’s point person on international economic policy.

Hubbard, 42, is considered an expert on taxes and financial markets and holds joint faculty appointments at Columbia University’s economics department and its business school. He has written extensively about the effect of taxation on business decision-making.

Hubbard is no stranger to Washington or national politics. He served the current president’s father as deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy from 1991 to 1993. He was also part of the Bush campaign’s economic team last year.

He is a graduate of the University of Central Florida and received his master’s degree and doctorate from Harvard.

In other appointments Monday, the White House nominated Mel Sembler, a Florida shopping center magnate and big Republican fund-raiser, to be president of the Export-Import Bank. Sembler was ambassador to Australia under the elder Bush and a member of President Reagan’s Conference for a Drug-Free America.

Sembler was finance chairman of the Republican National Committee and one of the key organizers of the Republican “Regents,” a group of individuals and corporations that provided the GOP with much of its “soft” money during the last campaign cycle.