The Fayette

County Chamber of Commerce Small Business Council invited

its 1999 award winner, Jim Pace, to speak at the luncheon

for the year 2000 winner.

Pace spoke

about the work involved in starting a small business and

nursing it through various stages of growth.

He said

that the life cycle of a company is not unlike the stages

of a person's life in that the first stage is a

"courtship," in which everyone is excited and

the level of commitment is high.

If things

go well you reach "infancy," a period in which

there is never enough cash and the CEO must spend his

time managing resources and not people, he said.

Next would

come the "go-go" phase when more cash becomes

available and growth becomes the main subject. It is at

this stage that the founder must begin to let control go

to others, he added.

In the

"adolescence" stage, growth will begin taking a

toll on your workers and the energy level goes down, Pace

said. The CEO must work hard to keep from losing money.

you reach the "prime" stage, everything is

working right, he said. It is a glorious time to be in

business and the CEO can now shift