BUSINESS & EDUCATION

Cortes of Clarkstown Collision wins Small Business Person of Year

Nanuet, NY— As an exclamation point to the success he has attained as a small business owner, on April 20, the New York District Office of the US Small Business Administration bestowed its Small Business Person of the Year for 2007 on Eugene “Gene” Cortes, owner of ;Clarkstown International Collision in Nanuet, NY.

Born in. Cuba, a one-time resident of Queens and now living in New City, NY, Cortes was selected in a competitive process from throughout the SM’s New York District servicing area which includes New York City, Long Island and the downstate counties of Duchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester.

Cortes said he learned the ropes of running a small business as a young man working alongside his lather, who owned and managed several restaurants and bakeries. He attended college at CUNY as a design-drafting and technology major, but drifted into auto body work part-time, through his brother-in-law1 who worked in an auto body shop.

He enjoyed the business so much that in 1972 he joined his brother-in-law in opening a three-car auto body shop in Queens. The two owners sold the business in 1979 and Cortes took a job as an auto appraiser first with Allstate and then with Travelers before deciding once again to pursue his dream— owning his own body shop.

In 1992 he opened Clarkstown International Collision in West Nyack with all of the working capital he had at the time— $100. The operation consisted of him, his wife, Anna, and one technician Through hard work the company grew to the extent that an adjacent building was purchased to open a second operation, Sagma Auto Glass, Inc.

By 2003, both operations outgrew the existing facilities, so Cortes moved his business to a 14,000 square- foot facility in Nanuet. Last year he undertook renovation of the facility with the help of an SBA-guaranteed 7(a) loan from the New York Business Development Corporation for $1.5 million. The business now generates $5 million per annum and employs 30 people, of whom 25 are minorities The business is also now authorized by 20 different national insurance companies as a direct repair shop, and is said to be so immaculately clean, you could “eat off the floor.”

Cortes’ contributions to his community are many and varied. He gives back by serving as a member of the Nyack Hospital Foundation Board, the Rockland Business Association, the Knights of Pythias, the Nyack Chamber of Commerce and the Clarkstown Community Task Force to name a few . And his company provides job education and training through New York’s BOCES Program. Cortes received his award in front of 200 business leaders, economic development officials, family and friends at the Ted Weiss Federal Building in Manhattan. He was joined by his wife, Anna, and three of his employees, who also happen to be his daughters. “They essentially run the business for me now so I should be able to retire early," Cortes laughed.