Advocate of Regulatory Relief to Speak to Businesswomen

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Public schools don’t teach. Keeping up with state regulations is a 35-hour-a-week task. And some of those rules serve no purpose other than to justify bureaucrats’ jobs.

Those are the views of Enita Nordeck, the outspoken owner of a Northern California lumber mill. She will speak in Huntington Beach Tuesday at a meeting of the local chapter of the National Assn. of Women Business Owners. Her topic: “Wake up, California! Small-business owners will not continue as the quiet majority.”

Nordeck’s beginning as a small-business owner was unusual. She quit her job as chief financial officer of a lumber mill when she thought that her ideas were not being implemented. Days later, three key employees of the mill showed up at her door, said they had also quit their jobs and urged her to start a competing business.

Her company, Unity Forest Products in Yuba City, had $16 million in revenue last year and employs 38 people in a depressed region of California.

Since February, when Nordeck presented her views on small businesses to a group of state lawmakers, she has been sought out for advice on drafting regulatory-relief bills. She has been interviewed by several national magazines, and she has met with President Clinton.

The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. The cost is $65 a person. For more information, call (714) 730-6100.