$1,000 and a dream

New Mexico Business Journal, Sept, 1996 by Rebecca Murphy

Sixteen years ago, Floyd Correa launched Correa Enterprises with $1,000, a used $50 Selectric typewriter, a secondhand metal desk and a dream. Correa, fresh out of a Washington D.C. position with the Department of Energy, had a vision of a company that provided assistance for tribes and companies developing natural resources on tribal lands. He hoped that his passion for computers and his experience with electronics could create a company on the cutting edge of resource development consulting.

He gave himself three months to establish the company. Three months was, perhaps, a little optimistic. He and his wife Margaret had two children, no income, plenty of bills and not a single contract. Correa was a former governor of the Laguna Pueblo and had operated successful businesses before, but this enterprise began, as he says, "from scratch."

The Correas returned to their home m Mesita on Laguna Pueblo land, where Correa had grown up, one of 13 children and the son of a Santa Fe railroadman. It was a long way into Albuquerque, but Correa drove it daily, the car broke down frequently, and the $1,000 dwindled. Floyd taught Margaret how to research companies and write issues papers while he contacted everyone he knew that might have some interest in the fledgling company. "I owe her so much," he said of Margaret, who now works with the Department of Energy.

SBA Man of the Year

And then, with the money nearly gone, Correa landed his first consulting contract with the Atlantic Rich field Co. in Albuquerque. It was a solid relationship that was to last for the next 11 years, launching Correa Enterprises from a one-man operation into the multi-million dollar, high-tech, 140 employee operation, that it is today. (Annual revenues approximated $10 million this year.) This year, 52 year old-Correa was named Small Businessman of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Correa Enterprises Inc. (CEI) sprawls across 25,000 square feet of office space at Wyoming and Academy in Albuquerque, and in offices in several major cities across the nation. It is really several companies in one. Its Technologies Division provides services as a contractor to a variety of government customers, including Sandia National Laboratories where it provides technical support to the Theater Air Command and Control Simulation Facility. CEI's Software Engineering Division is currently working on a major software development contract for a large international wireless telecommunications company. Its Systems Division supports DOE, the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs and the General Services Administration with computer installation, software, hardware and database design.

Far-Flung Enterprise

The company has expanded far beyond Correa's initial concept of a natural resources consulting company. CEI is heavily involved today in space surveillance and missile operations with NASA and the Department of Defense. And recently CEI added its New Media Group, specializing in the creation of CD-ROM databases, World Wide Web pages and kiosk development.

Oddly enough, for a company that boasts the very latest in computer hardware and software, Correa's office has no computer at all. He has a 486 PC at home but his office is empty of high-tech gadgetry.

"I leave the day-to-day operations to my division managers," Correa said. "My job is to lead this company in the direction I think it needs to go." Determining that direction calls for time and information. His briefcase is filled with the latest issues of technical and business magazines. A stack of eight books - on leadership, computers and business - comprises his current reading list. He spends time in meditation each day and has read extensively in Eastern philosophy. The interest in spiritual matters reaches back to his childhood at Laguna Pueblo.

Ever-changing Challenge

As a young boy, Correa used to help his grandfather, a medicine man, gather plants and herbs. "He talked to me about metaphysical concepts I didn't understand then," Correa recalled. "Today I see life as a learning process - an ever-changing challenge."

Challenges are nothing new to Correa. As one of the oldest sons in a family of 13 children, he was given heavy responsibility at an early age. When Correa was 10, his father turned over the care and feeding of 15 horses he used to work the fields and orchards near their home. The boy was also in charge of irrigating and weeding the 20-acre plot during the summer months when his father was at work on the railroad. Weekends were spent harvesting hay and selling hamburgers from the back of a truck at fiestas and ballgames across the state. And in the autumns, Correa chopped wood all weekend with his father to make extra cash. The school bus took more than an hour each way, he remembers, and that time was spent on homework - if there was enough daylight to read by. In the winter evenings, the entire family worked on crafts to sell at markets later in the year.

"My parents expected everyone in the family to contribute," Correa said, "but it was a loving atmosphere, too." Every child in the family now holds a college degree and several have advanced degrees.