Salt Lake City again tops list for entrepreneurs

The Salt Lake City-Ogden metro area again tops the list of U.S. cities in the growth rate of women-owned businesses, according to information released Monday.

The Center for Women's Business Research, based in Washington, D.C., reported the ranking in its report "Women-Owned Businesses in 2004: Trends in the Top 50 Metropolitan Areas."

The Salt Lake-Ogden metro area has topped the growth rate list for at least the past two years, reflecting a larger growth trend throughout the West, said Sharon Hadary, the center's executive director.

The report, released Monday, found that the four fastest-growing states for women-owned businesses — based on an average rank of 1997-to-2004 growth rates — are Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Idaho.

For 2004, the list of top growth cities reflects pockets of growth in the southwestern and southeastern United States, including North Carolina (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill; Charlotte/Gastonia/Rock Hill; and Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point) as well as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver.

"What we've seen when we've looked at high growth areas is that, first of all, there seems to be an openness in the economy," Hadary said. "On the East Coast, for example, there are a lot of barriers to entry for business ownership because it's a more established environment, a more established business network. Whereas, when we look particularly in your area, where there's a tremendous amount of growth, there isn't the established business growth and the established ways of doing business. There's more opportunity for women to get into business ownership and more opportunity to get in and be seen."

Salt Lake City-Ogden includes about 58,894 privately held businesses where women have an equal or majority holding, which accounts for about 47.5 percent of all privately held firms in the area. Those firms generate about $15 billion in annual sales and employ about 122,557 workers, according to the report.

Between 1997 and 2004, the center estimated that the number of women-owned firms in Salt Lake City-Ogden (where women had a 50 percent or greater share of the company) increased 35.6 percent. Employment in those firms grew by 68.4 percent, the report stated, while sales increased by 72.9 percent. About 11,681 of the women-owned firms in Salt Lake City-Ogden were employer firms, an increase of nearly 50 percent from 1997 to 2004.

Janis Kline, president of the National Association of Women Business Owners Salt Lake Chapter, attributed Utah's ranking to its entrepreneurial culture.