MHCC President Robert Silverman is an aspiring entrepreneur.

“I want to get a taco cart up here so I can serve you guys tacos out in the foyer, a dollar a taco,” Silverman said at an entreprenurship event. “This is how community colleges are going to start funding themselves, on taco carts.”

Silverman said he is negotiating with his son, a highly successful restaurant owner in Las Vegas, to bring a taco cart to Mt. Hood to a crowd of about 45 people who attended the Entrepreneurial Achievement Event at the Town and Gown Room on Tuesday where Rodney Barker, State Rep. John Lim, and Silverman spoke on the advantages of owning a small business and becoming an entrepreneur.

Although funding concerns have caused the district board to eliminate the entrepreneurship and small business management program, entrepreneurial program instructor and adviser Rodney Barker said it has found a “better home within the business program.”

Entrepreneurs and small business management students were reassured by Barker, “We have a very exciting program” that is “not going away.”

“We’re still here, alive, kicking as they say,” Barker said in his introduction to the event. Barker said guest entrepreneur Lim owned a health and beauty products store, grocery store and invested in real estate.

Lim began by apologizing for his Korean accent, then told the story of his arrival in the United States. Lim said he left Korea with $100. He landed in Japan and used the money to buy a camera. He reached the United States without a penny. He went to school to be a minister, but found after his schooling that his background prevented him from being ordained.

After school he went through a variety of jobs including janitor and pots and pans salesman. “You gotta’ start from the bottom,” he said.

Lim spoke of the “big problem” that funding education poses for the senate. “I don’t believe it’s a crisis,” he said. “Funding is a good thing, but it is not going to solve all the problems,” he said, citing too high tuition as one of the challenges facing community colleges.