UALR magazine
Spring/Summer 2007 • Vol. 3 No. 1
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Financing Dreams
By Judy Williams (Photography by Kelly Quinn)
While folks young and old across Arkansas are lying in bed plotting out plans to start their own businesses, Leslie Lane wakes up in the morning puzzling over creative ways to finance those dreams.
In a nutshell, his job is to empower entrepreneurs. A senior vice president at Arkansas Capital Corporation (ACC), Lane and his associates help Arkansans create businesses that build upon their passions in life. The goal is for families to build wealth that will ultimately contribute to the state’s economy.
“We as a state have been blessed with a rich heritage of entrepreneurs who have chased their dreams and caught them,” said Lane, member of the UALR Alumni Board of Directors, who was the first person in his family to obtain a college degree. “We are trying to continue that tradition, and if we do anything as a company, we try to get people to believe they can accomplish whatever they want here in Arkansas.”
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, ACC was formed in 1957 as First Arkansas Development Finance Corporation by a group of influential individuals and 35 of the state’s utilities to provide a mechanism for financing the state’s transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy.
In a 1960 article about the finance corporation for Arkansas Economist, Herbert J. Thomas Sr. noted that existing methods of industrial financing were not sufficient to keep Arkansas in a competitive position with other states in the bidding for outside industries. Thomas, who was serving as chairman of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, said new and expanding businesses were “thwarted by lack of credit or capital funds.”
Fifty years later, Arkansas Capital Corp. has invested slightly more than $355 million and its partners $372 million into the Arkansas economy. ACC has financed loans in excess of $737 million to Arkansas companies. One of the early projects was a loan to Acxiom, the Little Rock-based company that blends data, technology, and services to provide a customer information infrastructure; it now has offices in 10 countries. A more recent investment was last year to Patriot BioFuels, a biodiesel company located in Stuttgart — the heart of the Arkansas Delta.
Underpinning the need to lend a hand to entrepreneurs is the need to raise per capita income in the state. With Arkansas’ per capita income close to the bottom of state rankings, ACC has studied how the state can proceed economically to raise the average family income.
Fierce competition for attracting large manufacturers like Toyota — as many as 50,000 communities actively competefor 1,000 projects — means that the state must look for other growth areas besides the slim chance of wooing large companies.
“We by no means want to lose out on opportunities such as Toyota, but if we build an environment where local businesses are starting up and thriving, then that feeds into these larger companies wanting to do business in that environment,” Lane said. “This is a case where we can do both recruiting of large companies and growing our own companies within Arkansas.”
Lane finds it staggering that the majority of new net jobs being created are actually coming from small companies, many in the one to four-employee size.
Arkansas, like many states, is challenged with an economy that is fundamentally changing.
“We are faced with some tremendous change, but that also presents us with lots of opportunity,” Lane said. “We are increasing our scale of investment into economic development and exerting a tremendous amount of effort catching up to other states that have been economically prosperous. The positive is that we have the leadership in Arkansas that understands the need to make the tough decisions, and they are making them now so that we can catch up.”
He pointed to leaders and groups such as Accelerate Arkansas, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, and the Fund for Arkansas’ Future that understand what drives an innovative economy and cares about seeing Arkansas and its citizens advance.
Lane said universities across America are the hotbeds of innovation — incubators of talent and research — and they must be the bastion of tolerance to allow for free and creative thinking by people from diverse backgrounds from all over the world.
“We look to universities to come up with the next ‘ah-ha’ moment,” he said. “It doesn’t take a lot of innovators to impact a region.”
World-class research, such as that going on at UALR in nanotechnology and software engineering will help the economy move forward, according to Lane.
“We will also need the talented student population that UALR represents,” he added. “The University has done a very effective job reaching out to all students across the state, such as non-traditional, first generation, and minority students. UALR is to be commended for encouraging those students to challenge themselves and build a better future for them and their families.”
Lane said UALR’s partnerships with organizations such as UAMS and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission is also critical. “The University has brought in some very talented staff, such as Tom Walker and Joe Bell. They help bring a broader vision to the state and help us think about novel ways to address our state’s issues.
“It has been said that where you find a great community you find a great college. I think the same can be said for a state; to have a great state, you have to have great universities such as UALR.”
Keeping college graduates in Arkansas is also important to economic development. Lane said the challenge is to show them communities where they can find a variety of rewarding employment opportunities and a place where they feel that their contributions are valued.
“We cannot underestimate the talent that they represent, and if we engage that talent working to find solutions for our challenges, it is amazing what the outcomes can be,” Lane said. He pointed to Dell, Microsoft, Def Jam Recordings and Facebook — all companies started by college students while they were enrolled as students.
“For those students who do leave Arkansas for career considerations, they need to understand we want them back,” Lane said. “It may be healthy for their particular circumstances to go outside the state and gain professional experiences, but they should understand we want them to come back to Arkansas and make a difference here.”
What business leaders don’t want to see, he said, is the best and brightest students leave and not return. “We’ve got to figure out a way to keep them here and engaged.”
ACC has several initiatives to spur innovation, including the creation of a venture capital industry in Arkansas. The group manages a successful venture capital fund, Diamond State Ventures, which hosts the Arkansas Venture Forum. ACC staff, led by CEO Sam Walls, another UALR alumnus, also sits on a variety of boards and committees that focus on creating an innovative economy.
In addition, the corporation sponsors the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup for Entrepreneurial Development, a business plan competition designed to challenge college students to think about innovative businesses, and supports Accelerate Arkansas, a group of volunteers that is trying to put in place the building blocks for a progressive economy.
To help foster entrepreneurship at an early age, ACC hosts the Youth Entrepreneurship Showcase, a business plan competition that targets fifth- through eighth-grade students across the state.
“We see so many people stepping up to the plate to help advance Arkansas,” said Lane. His exhaustive list of examples includes Bill Bowen, UALR Dean Mary Good, and Mike Coulson who formed the Fund for Arkansas’ Future. There’s Jerry Adams, Watt Gregory, Mark Saviers, and James Hendren with Accelerate Arkansas. The movers behind the Arkansas Venture Forum include Gen. Wesley Clark, Tim McFarland, John Lewis, Jim Smith, Grey Williams, Dana Silaski, Mike Smith Jr., and Allen Engstrom.
Lane, one of the Natural State’s biggest cheerleaders, often describes Arkansas as one of the best places to work. If you ask him why, get ready for a lengthy answer.
“Why not?” he asks. “Where else in the world can you find a state whose people have changed their world to the level that ours have? Within Arkansas we have a state that produced the business leadership that built the largest investment bank off Wall Street, largest company in the world, and spawned political giants that started the Medicare program, the Social Security program, and the Fulbright Scholars.
“We produce people with the courage to break down intolerance whether it be the courageous nine at Central High, John Alexander becoming the second African-American to graduate from West Point and subsequently the first African-American officer in the U.S. Army, or Hattie Caraway who became the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate and the first woman to preside over the Senate. If you live and work in Arkansas, you are around people on a daily basis who are leaving a lasting legacy in our society.”
Lane, a firm believer in life-long education, moved to Arkansas at age 3. His father was the first in his family to attend college, but was called away to Vietnam. Upon returning from the war, he became a police officer and took evening college classes. Unfortunately, he was killed in the line of duty before graduating.
With that as a driving force, Lane’s mother encouraged her son to attend college.
“She really set the expectation for me to complete college,” he said. “And then I had some great people who influenced my time at UALR, such as Ashvin Vibhakar, Ellis Sloan, and Andy Terry. Every step along the way, somebody was there to encourage me.”
With brief ambitions of becoming an engineer, Lane found his true love in finance and economics. Following graduation, he began his career for two years at Stephens Inc. He advanced quickly in his next job at Arkansas Science & Technology Authority where he was promoted to vice chairman of finance after 18 months on the job and returned to UALR for an MBA. He has been at ACC for the past year-and-a-half.
So where does he see himself in the next five years?
“I hope to be having as much fun with my job as I am now and be surrounded by as many interesting and diverse people,” Lane said. “It keeps life interesting, and every day you wake up wondering what the day will have in store.”