14361: Hermantin: Understanding Entrepreneurs: Faidherbe "Fedo" Boyer (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Herald Business Section


Posted on Mon, Jan. 06, 2003

Understanding entrepreneurs: Four case studies
BY DIMITRY ELIAS LÉGER
dleger@herald.com


You could call Faidherbe ''Fedo'' Boyer a neophyte business owner, but don't
call him a naive one.

The elementary-school teacher turned founder and president of CreoleTrans, a
Creole-document translation firm in Fort Lauderdale, is still waiting to see
his first profits after four years of operation. But this does not surprise
him.

''I've always thought our first five years would be a learning experience,
and once we get past five years our future would get a lot brighter,'' he
said.

Early on he put the social value of his firm's work -- translating documents
into Creole for South Florida organizations -- ahead of the bottom line.

Now he's trying to figure out how to find those elusive profits. He's
operating at a loss even after building his revenue fivefold -- from $20,000
to $100,000 -- in the past four years.

''We don't get to keep much,'' he said, ``but we're progressing.''

Boyer is an elementary-school teacher by training. CreoleTrans' business
dovetails with his academic specialty: Creole-English education. It has
taken him four years to understand just how demanding running his own
business can be.

''I had to learn how to deal, how to price, how to provide customer service,
and how to compete,'' he said.

Boyer, 41, is an academic at heart, a teacher with an advanced degree in
education from the City College of New York. Born in Cayes, in the southern
part of Haiti, to a grocery-store-owner mom and truck-driver dad, he moved
to New York in 1979 and to Miami after college graduation.

He decided to launch his translation company after he returned from a
yearlong volunteer teaching stint in the Haitian countryside, where he
improved his Creole. In South Florida, he noticed a lack of cohesion in the
vocabulary various organizations used for documents written in Creole.

'I said to myself, `Wow, there's a need for professional services in
processing Creole documents,' '' he said.

Today CreoleTrans' clients include the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the
Boys and Girls Club in Palm Beach, and the Early Childhood Foundation in
Miami-Dade County.

Boyer described his business -- in which he emphasizes to clients and
employees the importance of correct spelling and grammar -- as merely an
extension of his work as a teacher.

''I was happy in all my past jobs,'' he said. ``I'm happy teaching people
how to create documents that use Creole in a proper format.''

For that reason, he agrees with the Inc 500 Business Growth Survey results
that suggest the entrepreneurial life offers greater freedom than grading
homework every night. And Boyer says his business offers added intellectual
stimulus of exposing him to the inner workings of various organizations.

As for his work's impact on his spousal relationship, it's too early to
tell. He has only been married four months. He lucked out, though, by
marrying a woman who understands that years of sacrifice in time and money
are often required before a payoff comes. His wife is the novelist Edwidge
Danticat, author of Krik? Krak! and The Farming of Bones.

''I would like to believe she'll stick by me through the financial ups and
downs,'' he said. ``I believe she will.''








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