AURORA | Dawit Mengesha believes the business model for his clinical lab located in Aurora is a first for the state. His staff makes house calls for people needing doctor-ordered lab testing and imaging services.
The immigrant, who last lived in Norway, wants to expand. But regulations and worker shortages have created speed bumps that aren’t to maneuver.
“Many labs don’t want to do this,” Mengesha said outside of the unassuming lab in an office building on East Mississippi Ave. Making the lab services mobile is expensive, with extra costs for traveling and vehicles.
But there is a need, he said.
Mengesha, who hails from Ethiopia and came to the U.S. for schooling, was working in labs on the Anschutz Medical Campus when he realized he could start his own lab and bring services to people in their homes. He and his wife started Precision Clinical Laboratories, which he said caters to an aging population of baby boomers. For those clients, he said, getting to a lab can be a challenge, whether it be because of scheduling, mobility or cost.
Many labs may make trips to nursing homes and assisted living centers, but true house calls can be difficult to come by.
So far, the business is growing. The lab added imaging services —which includes x-rays, ultrasound and EKGs — three months ago. Mengesha now employs more than 20 people. He started in 2014 when it was just himself. In 2016, the real work began when he had finally earned all the proper credentials and licensing to operate the lab.
Mengesha wants to open labs with similar business models across the country. He’s currently working with partners in Ohio and Virgina to open labs.
On a recent visit from Aurora Congressman Jason Crow, Mengesha and his staff showed the lawmaker their operation and expressed challenges they face in running their small business.
“There’s always something,” Mengesha laughed when Crow inquired about what has been the most challenging.
Mostly, he said, it has been the hiring piece. “Sometimes we’ll hire somebody and we never see them again.”
Mengesha wants to organize his own training program for phlebotomy certification that would incentivize participants to stay with his lab by paying for a portion of their course. He’d also like to see regulations eased to make hiring from overseas easier.
“Hiring is only getting more difficult,” Mengesha said, noting that there are two Filipino citizens with the right credentials and specialized education he’d like to hire, but obtaining visas has been difficult for them.
Crow, Chair of the Innovation and Workforce Development Subcommittee, said he often hears the same frustration from other business owners, and wants to use his work on the committee to bolster resources and opportunity for start-ups and entrepreneurs like Mengesha.
“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot, frankly,” he said.
He also sees the need for easing the process of starting a business for immigrants, who are nearly twice as likely to start their own business, according to a 2015 report from the Kaufman Foundation, a nonprofit group that studies entrepreneurship.
In 2015, immigrants accounted for 13.8 percent of business owners in the Denver and Aurora metropolitan area. Mengesha joins more than 30,000 other immigrants who are self-employed in Colorado. Together they generate more than a half-billion-dollars annually for the Colorado economy, according to a report from the New American Economy Research Fund.
“I want to be responsive in finding access to capital for these hopeful business owners,” Crow said.
Immigrants often come to the U.S. with no credit, making it hard to access lenders or resources for a new business. Crow said he’d like to see upcoming legislation focus on that particular slice of the overall issue of creating good small business policy.