Utahn Lorraine Miller knows good things sprout from small seeds - like the plants she started selling at a small store in 1975, which grew into a million-dollar-a-year business.
That also led President Clinton to name her Wednesday as the nation's No. 1 small-business operator in a ceremony where top small- business operators from each state waited to see who would win the top award."Lorraine Miller is an outstanding example of what one individual can accomplish through hard work and personal initiative," Small Business Administration administrator Erskine Bowles said.
"She is an example of American entrepreneurship at its best," he said. His agency brought the 50 state winners to Washington as part of its Small Business Week activities.
Miller is president of Cactus & Tropicals Inc., Salt Lake City, and is only the third woman to win in the competition's 31-year history.
Miller started with $600 worth of plants in one small store, where she lived upstairs. Today her business has four greenhouses, a garden, a gift shop, an office building, two trucks, almost 40 employees and more than $1 million in annual sales.
It is growing steadily at 20 percent a year.
"Like many small-business owners across the country, Lorraine started her business from scratch with very little money, some of which she borrowed from family," Bowles said.
"She combined a good idea and a desire to succeed with hard work, and she's proof that the American dream of starting and running your own business can and does work," he said.
Miller is a former VISTA volunteer and a former president of both the Utah Association of Women Business Owners and the Salt Lake Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, a former small-business man himself, was also quick to praise Miller.
He said she is "a perfect example of what can be accomplished with hard work and determination."
"As an entrepreneur who has enjoyed successes as well as failures, I learned early that the key to achieving the entrepreneurial dream lies in tenacity - you must never give up. Ms. Miller is proof that this works," he said.