Executive Suite: Ernest Gonzalez

Many entrepreneurs dream of building a business successful enough to sell to a larger company. Nicaraguan native Ernest Gonzalez has lived that dream. He built Captree Chemical into one of Long Island's largest Hispanic-owned companies before selling the 25-year-old company to an Indianapolis chemical distributor in 2002.

Now he's back for his second entrepreneurial act. This time he wants to build a global enterprise from the office of his new company, Captree Puretech Solutions, a chemical company in Valley Stream.

He has partnered with Walker International Transportation, a firm that specializes in transportation and warehousing operations and with whom Gonzalez shares office space.

Gonzalez's company supplies chemicals used to manufacture cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food, and his maintenance division sells industrial cleaning products.

Gonzalez embodies the immigrant spirit on Long Island. A recent study found that immigrants generated 17 percent of the total earnings of Long Islanders in 2009, roughly their share of the population, and own 22 percent of small businesses. Newsday spoke to him about entrepreneurship.

You're an entrepreneur at heart, so the five-year noncompete agreement that kept you out of the chemical business after you sold your company must have been tough to weather. How did you do it?
I was playing golf. I was visiting. I was going to Argentina, to Uruguay . . . [Then you realize] your passion and you're missing something out of life.

What is your passion?
I'm very inquisitive. I like to ask questions, find out what customers' needs are. I try to fill that void. I always ask the customers, "What is something that you would like that you don't have right now?"

Why did you decide to jump back into the chemical business?
Because as we build up the economy, people are not going to stop using lipstick. People are still going to be eating. We're living longer. You need more painkillers, and you need more chemicals to manufacture them. So those are resistant to cycles like a recession . . . This time I want to transport [the chemicals]. I want to warehouse them [as well as] get materials to make the products. That's one-stop shopping.

What are some of your plans for doing business abroad?
We are starting right now to try to work up something in Chile, Central America and naturally Puerto Rico. I used to be in Puerto Rico. A lot of bakeries use a lot of raisins for bread. So we're positioning ourselves in the global market to get raisins from countries like Chile or Argentina. Raisins are nothing but a chemical . . . a fruit chemical.

Corporate Snapshot

Name. Ernest Gonzalez

Title. Chief executive

Company. Captree Puretech Solutions

What it does. Distributes chemicals used to make various products

Employees. Eight