Small Business Development Center regional director Chuck Edwards (left) and SBA West Texas Deputy Director Rey Lops (right) present Floydada's Alfredo Perez with a certificate of recognition during National Veteran Small Business Week on Thursday, November 2 (courtesy photo)
LUBBOCK, TX – Alfredo Perez, owner of Floydada’s Liquor Shack, will tell you, plain and simple, the biggest benefit of working with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Texas Tech. “They’re free!” he laughed.
Last Thursday, Perez was honored by the center, funded through the federal government’s Small Business Administration, as part of National Veteran Small Business Week.
Perez, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, opened the store in the 300 block of Houston Street earlier this year and has utilized resources from the SBDC and Floydada’s Economic Development Center to get his business off the ground.
During Thursday’s ceremony, SBDC regional director Chuck Edwards thanked Perez for his service as a veteran and for his commitment to Floydada. “We recognize how important and critical small businesses are to our local communities,” said Edwards, who drew parallels between business ownership and military service. “It’s part of their story; everybody that’s a business owner has a story that takes them through different stages.”
When asked how his military career helped him prepare for owning a business, Perez said it taught him resiliency. “It (the military) teaches you how to handle stressful situations. It’s very stressful to open your own business. There’s a lot of uncertainty.” He compared getting a business going to a deployment. “You live for the light at the end of the tunnel; you look at the long goal.”
West Texas Deputy Director for the Small Business Administration, Rey Lops, presented the award to Perez alongside Edwards. Lops encouraged veterans looking to start businesses to get involved with the SBDC. “The web that we have available (for veterans) is just phenomenal.”
To learn more about the Small Business Development Center, visit their website at lubbocksbdc.org. For veteran-specific resources from the Small Business Administration, visit sba.gov.
