Chris Bailey wraps up his 11:00 a.m. business meeting — one of several for the day — on the patio at the Portland Mercado on SE Foster. It’s a sweltering Wednesday in August. As the micro-enterprise developer for Hacienda CDC, Bailey often spends his days at the Latino market hall, where he oversees an incubator kitchen and 19 retail spaces representing different Latin American regions. From Oaxacan to Haitian to Puerto Rican, the Latin-inspired fare available at the nine carts out front is only one of the features of the Mercado. The perimeter of the building also contains a juice shop, meat counter, beer bar and bustling commissary kitchen. As we walk the property, Bailey introduces me to Omar, who just opened the cold-pressed juice bar Xocotl. With Bailey’s help, Omar completed the Mercado’s Bilingual Boot Camp last spring, and opened his shop earlier this summer. “Chris, he’s been a great help coaching and guiding us,” says Omar, a Mexican immigrant who ran embroidery and dehydration businesses before moving here 14 years ago. “There are so many little details,” he says, “that as an entrepreneur and an immigrant you don’t know.” During the six-session boot camp Bailey coordinates, participants learn product development, business licensing and insurance, cash-flow, marketing, sales channels and more — in Spanish. Customized consulting meetings with Bailey and his team help prepare graduates for business ownership and operation, often at an accelerated rate. According to Bailey, some of the biggest challenges for immigrants who want to open businesses include language barriers, technology, and access to financial capital. As a kid, Bailey would nap in the side office of the Thai restaurant kitchen his mother and aunt ran in Oahu for 30 years. From Hawaii, Bailey went to college at Portland’s Lewis & Clark, then went back to the island to work as the travel editor. Eventually, Portland drew him back; here, he started two packaged goods business of his own. One is Pozole to the People, a vegan, gluten-free Mexican soup starter based on a family recipe using organic chilés. The other is Bloom Caramel, a dairy-free, handcrafted caramel made with vanilla, pure coconut milk and organic spices, which he is working to export to Canada, Japan and beyond. “[Bailey] brings business acumen, product development, recipe development, product testing, food chemistry, and retail industry relations to a community that needs them desperately,” says Flaherty Betin. Bottom Line for Portland: Bailey has helped more than 50 small, POC-owned businesses expand and thrive through the Hacienda CDC’s business incubation program, and oversees daily operations at the Portland Mercado.