A veteran presence
Kelly Hunt grew up in a small family in a small town, sustained by a small business.
Her father, Mel Lacey, launched Lacey’s Auto & Truck Repair outside Brownsville in the early 1980s, an enterprise that endures to this day. He was raising two kids alone in Centerville, at a time when single parents weren’t as common – especially dads. But he provided for his daughter and son, and himself, through what he earned at this little garage that could.
“It’s a great small business that has made it in a rural area,” Hunt said proudly.
Although she wouldn’t realize it for years, that shop benefited her beyond supplying the bare necessities of life. It instilled entrepreneurial skills and spirit that have served, and continue to serve, her.
Hunt is the new director of the Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She has been there for two months, helping small enterprises start, then hopefully grow and succeed. Her office in downtown Pittsburgh is responsible for 27 counties, essentially across the western half of Pennsylvania – from State College to the western border.
Principles she learned as a teen about operating the garage have been an engine that drives her.
“At the time, I never thought anything beyond my father had a garage,” Hunt said. “When I got older, I realized I had a skill set ingrained because of that.”
She certainly has done a lot since graduating from Bethlehem-Center High School in the mid-1980s, as a kid without a compass. Hunt had no definitive plan.
“I didn’t consider college to be an option. It was not something I thought about,” Hunt said. “I turned 18 and enlisted in the Air Force, even though I didn’t have a point of reference. I didn’t know anyone in the military.”
The Air Force provided that compass, and an educational jump start. It also started to draw out and fine-tune those entrepreneurial abilities.
“It was a great decision for me and changed my life,” she said. “The military gave me confidence and self-discipline I’d never had before. And while I was on active duty, I started to go to college and education became a passion.
“The military opened doors that, if I hadn’t enlisted, never would have opened for me.”
Hunt was on active duty for 10 years, as a security police officer. She acquired associate’s and bachelor’s degrees during this time, a master’s afterward, and is now an incomplete thesis away from a doctorate.
While in the service, Hunt made another significant acquisition: her husband, Terry. They met in England, where he also was stationed, then married in 1987. The Hunts had three children, who eventually gave them four grandchildren.
Terry Hunt, a Lumbee Indian originally from Lumberton, N.C., is a Washington businessman. He and Anthony Howard operate City Motors Inc., a used-car dealership at 775 W. Chestnut St.
After years away, Kelly Hunt returned to her southeastern Washington County roots when she and her family moved to Beallsville.
“Being able to live in different places and come home, I wanted to do something to make the place where I grew up better,” Hunt said.
She became a professor at California University of Pennsylvania, eventually assuming the reins of executive director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Center & Student Incubator. Hunt was at Cal U. for eight years, head of the center for final two, before leaving in September for her current position.
Her commute, previously 15 minutes, is now an hour-plus. That doesn’t bother her, though. She keeps a leisurely pace on days she drives, and public transit rides afford her opportunities to read, enjoy scenery, ponder her upcoming workday.
It has been a satisfying transition.
“This job takes in everything I’ve loved in every job I’ve had,” Hunt said. “It allows me to do everything I’m passionate about. I can teach, I can counsel small businesses . . . It’s a job I couldn’t pass up.”
Hunt supervises 10 people in an office that serves the western half of Pennsylvania. There are two district offices in the state, the other being in Philadelphia. Most states have one, some zero.
Her worksite on Seventh Avenue has the characteristics of a small business, which is appropriate. That is the dynamic the SBA supports and represents.
“Ninety-five percent of all businesses are small businesses,” Hunt said. “We’re looking at a range from service industries to manufacturing. There are so many kinds of businesses and so many kinds of entrepreneurs.”
Military veterans are among them, of course – a category with which this veteran has a close kinship.
“I think vets are the greatest group when looking at entrepreneurship,” Hunt said. “They have experience in risk-taking and they have the skill sets.”
The SBA offers a number of programs and services to assist veterans and non-veterans with startups or building up businesses that exist. Many individuals, however, are unaware of the scope of these offerings. For more information, visit sba.gov/offices/district/pa/pittsburgh.
Small business, Hunt emphasized, is a big undertaking.
“People have to think entrepreneurially no matter what they do,” she said. “Being an entrepreneur is more than starting a business.”
Which she learned in Centerville decades ago.