[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 11177]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            WILLIAM HOUGHTON

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Mr. William 
Houghton on his selection by the Small Business Administration as the 
2004 Nevada Small Business Person of the Year. It is my honor to 
recognize Mr. Houghton's achievement, as well as the hard work and 
ingenuity he has displayed in building his own business over the past 
12 years.
  The story actually begins in 1987, when Mr. Houghton got a job with a 
Las Vegas company that distributed business forms. His pay was just $5 
an hour but he set his sights much higher.
  In 1992 he became a partner with his former boss, and they formed 
their own firm called Horizon Business Systems. They started with one 
employee and did about $500,000 worth of business the first year.
  Mr. Houghton eventually bought out his partner, and took on the 
challenge of overseeing the company's transition through the rapid 
technological developments of the late 1990s. His good business sense 
and strong leadership helped the business grow, and today it employs 12 
workers and logs more than $2.2 million in sales.
  Small businesses such as Horizon Business Systems are the engine that 
powers our Nation's economy, representing 99.7 percent of all 
employers, employing more than half our Nation's private sector 
workers, and creating up to 80 percent of all net new jobs annually.
  In this spirit, the SBA's Small Business Person of the Year award 
seeks to acknowledge the critical role of small businesses in creating 
jobs and spurring economic growth, and the successes of individual 
small business owners throughout the country.
  Please join me in congratulating Mr. William Houghton on the 
remarkable success of his business and on his selection as the 2004 
Nevada Small Business Person of the Year.

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