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MERIDIAN – Roy L. Bussey thought he had it all figured out when he moved from Detroit to the Mississippi Gulf Coast a few years ago. He had a $4.5 million contract to renovate military housing at Keesler Air Force Base, a business deal that would also allow him to be closer to his mother as she enjoyed her senior years. He had purchased an office complex and leased a home. Two weeks after his arrival, Mother Nature altered those plans.
Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history, washed away his new home and his contract with the military. But instead of heading back to the Midwest, Bussey, 54, decided to stay in the Magnolia state. “After evaluating my position, I decided to stay,” Bussey said. “I wanted to work with government. I contacted the state to see what was available for businesses being established in Mississippi.”
Bussey eventually found his way to the Mississippi Development Authority’s Minority and Small Business Development Division. “I attended various training and informational sessions, in Meridian and in Jackson,” he said. “As it turns out, I became a fixture at these meetings. They saw my face everywhere – in Biloxi, Tupelo and Jackson.”
Bussey is a graduate of the Model Contractor Development Program, a 9-week program sponsored by MDA’s Minority and Small Business Development Division and the Surety and Fidelity Association of America. MDA has also helped him to become certified as a Minority Business Enterprise and a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. Bussey is certified through the Mississippi Department of Transportation as well.
Bussey now operates Busco Construction from a storefront in Meridian’s warehouse district among a collection of shops, furniture stores and lofts. The company is a residential and light commercial construction firm with four full-time employees, but the workforce grows and shrinks by the job. “From the time we push down the first tree until we hand off the keys to the owner, we are responsible for everything in between.”
He is particularly grateful for MDA’s Model Contractor Program. “For small businesses and minorities, the two impediments to success are bonding and financing,” Bussey said. “The opportunity for me to be able to get that bonding came out of the Model Contractor Program.”
But how has MDA best assisted Busco? “Exposure,” Bussey said. “In this business, it’s important to have networks. That’s how it’s been most beneficial for me - the seminars and various meetings that we have.”
One such networking opportunity that Bussey has taken advantage of is the Business and Procurement Opportunities Conference. In fact, he calls it a potential gold mine for small business. “I attended the 2007 conference,” Bussey recalled. “I made some good contacts that led to some joint ventures. I’ve developed relationships with contractors, vendors and even presenters. I met a contractor at one of these meetings and he was not even from Mississippi. Six months later, we were bidding on a contract together,’’ Bussey said.
Securing financing in the current climate, he said, has been a challenge. “My bank withdrew my $500,000 line of credit. I had used about $25,000. I paid it back on time and sometimes even ahead of schedule. But it wasn’t just me. It’s happening everywhere. Acquiring and maintaining lines of credits with banks are next to impossible.”
But Bussey said he is pressing on. “I am going to make it, simply because I am a no-quit guy. Four years ago I came here with $300,000 in the bank. Katrina took care of that. Then my profits started picking up again. For this year, I’ve got contracts; I just have to get them financed.” These contracts include work on the King Edward Hotel and the Standard Life Building, two construction projects in downtown Jackson. Bussey’s firm has also done business with the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the Mississippi Air National Guard, the Navy and the Air Force. For firms like Busco, Bussey believes it is all about opportunity, and MDA has helped make him aware of opportunities and helped him position himself to take advantage of them. “If I get an opportunity to compete, I will be successful. This is not my first rodeo.”
