WORKING IN A NEW WORLD
By Merle English.
Newsday, November 12 1998
Immigrants have helped transform New York City's workforce, creating new businesses and jobs that have added to the region's economy. Concluding a five-part series, "Working in a New World," Newsday offers five stories today about immigrants who successfully started businesses.
From the age of 10, when he delivered newspapers and managed a gas station for his uncle in his native Guyana, Ray Rafeek knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.
"I had entrepreneurial blood in me," he said.
It propelled the 41-year-old Bayside resident to own a flourishing courier business in Manhattan with gross sales of $3 million per year.
Rafeek had worked as a fuel checker on a major sugar estate, a fire-industry salesman, and an engine-oil distributor for Texaco before leaving his home in Corriverton in 1987 to join his parents in the United States.
"All that time, I knew I wanted to be in business for myself," he recalled last week.
As he spoke, a dozen members of his multi-racial staff of more than 100 took orders over telephones and dispatched couriers on foot, bicycles and in vans and trucks to make same-day deliveries throughout the tri-state area.
Just a week before, his 7-year-old business, Twenty-Four Hours Courier Inc., had moved into the spacious, newly carpeted Midtown office. It all began in 1991 when Rafeek, the oldest of four children, and a partner set up business in a $400-a-month, 12-foot by 15-foot room on 14th Street.
He left a job with a courier service to go on his own, starting out with one van, one employee and a $5,000 loan. His father taught him how to get around the city.
"I knocked on doors. The first day, we only did two deliveries," he said.
He didn't take a salary. His wife Shafi had a job that covered living expenses for the couple and their three children. Rafeek and his partner ran into difficulties trying to grow the operation.
"The people who promised to give me business didn't give me any," he said. "And the banks didn't want to touch it." But help was available. "One of the major reasons for my success is my involvement in trade associations," Rafeek said.
He's a director of the Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and Industry and treasurer of the New York State Messenger Courier Association.
"By being with my trade associations, mixing with people from the industry, attending national conventions and stuff like that you can share experiences and learn," he said.
"That is what enhanced my business." He sought clients in the advertising, publishing, printing, and airline industries, in legal and graphic-arts firms.
The business developed, and in 18 months, Rafeek bought out his partner. He moved to a bigger space on 37th Street and last year opened another dispatch office in Wall Street. Today, the firm does 900 to 1,000 deliveries a day, and Rafeek is forecasting growth to $10 million in gross sales within four years.
Now, Rafeek, who was a delegate to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business, is looking to help others with his expertise. "I want to see other immigrants do business," he said. "Business is the backbone that can make immigrant communities stronger."
He added: "The moment I feel most proud of was at the White House conference when I stood on the balcony of the State Department and realized that I have come a long way."
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