Female: Welcome to sbtv.com this is a coverage of SEMA 2007 in Las Vegas and were going to take a little term because not only with me is a car enthusiast and small business owner and expert. But also an assembly person from the state of New York Bill Rollick is from the 134th District of Monroe County. Now Bill you’ve been a business owner gosh for most of your life.
Bill: Yeah.
Female: Since you were 14.
Bill: I always knew that I wanted to involved in business in aged 14 I started photography business or I did a filming in a dark room for my classmates in school and from that when I graduated from high school I started a security company and grew that into employing 60 people over 80 year are over 28 years so I've been business for over 30 years now, now in the automotive industry too.
Female: Okay, we’ll talk about your small business expertise is correlated into a carrier in politics for you.
Bill: Well as a small business owner we all know that the challenges that you face. And I got frustrated with some of the government regulation, over regulation, taxation a lot of the rules didn’t seem like they make sense you know common senses and what it used to be I say. So with that I say well I'm going to complain about it, I should best get more involved and then I started to get involved in local politics, health candidate that were supportive of my point of view and before long I was asked to run and now I'm a state assembly man and I enjoyed very much because I can cut through a lot of red tape and hopefully bring common sense back to government.
Female: So it sounds like platform really is you know you're an ethical for small business.
Bill: Well absolutely and so I realized the value of small business I realized that small business is a future of our economy in New York state it really is and those small business are the ones that start with five to ten people eventually may grow into a quite large employers.
Female: Is there anything, any unique challenges facing small business owners in your area or in the automotive area in general that you want to talk about.
Bill: Well the New York state is always been tough in small business so we have a regulation called 240 to 241 Saddling Law which dries up the cost of liability in terms for all business owners and actually all consumers in the state of New York. So we have an additional challenge but anyone in operating a small business knows and a lot of the challenges are uniform throughout the country the cost of health care, the cost of insurance, the cost of just keeping their business the door is open on day to day basis.
People that have never run the wrong business don’t understand the challenges and they don’t understand what it's like to sign not only the back of the cheque but also sign the promontories cheque and all that you don’t always get paid on Friday because you're the last one to get paid.
Female: That’s right, even if you remember to pay yourself as a lot of small business owners don’t even acquaint into that.
Bill: People understand, people are bare to think of you own a business that you’re extremely wealthy and you’ve got a class that full of cash and that’s not the reality. Reality should put your whole reputation perhaps everything you own on the line.
Female: Okay, going back to your role as an assembly person you have started and organization or cocas if you will of others state representatives throughout the country who are also automotive enthusiast.
Bill: Yeah, I've been life long auto enthusiast so I always love cars and I think I got that from my father, I own a few cars and now I collect cars and it's really hobby and passion. And I think it's a great hobby for a family event too but through my role as a assembly man I learned of SEMA and their clock has said they have that represents the auto enthusiast perspective and legislation. To make sure that we can keep this hobby alive you know for those that don’t understand the love affair with cars the way I would explain it is this, it's no different that people preserve the historic building. Were preserving Americana history, its part of our culture the automobile and very often those involve in the automobile industry are small business owners. Mom and Pop shops and we as state seminar representatives we not only represent our constituents in our district but also represent this point of view. And now were representing all 50 states, we have representatives that are elected. They are part of the seem of the clock as we grown up the shift from with started a little over a hundred members and now 230 I hope by this time next year that it would grow up to 500 members.
Female: Okay, let's talked about some of those challenges that this Mom and Pop shops are facing is there any legislation down the pipe to help with some of those challenges or anything that you can share with us.
Bill: Well let me just say this, that the—what we bring to the table as state represent is a lot of a laws that are put in placed dealing with the auto industry, ones a car has been manufactured are dealt with at the state level. You know the federal level though regulate airbags and seatbelts and that type of products. But at the state level were regulating the how a lot of muffler can we window tending our windows spinners on hub caps and whether somebody can build a kick car and get a registration for it.
So a lot of legislation is done at the state level. So that’s when we can be effective and I've been introduced what we call “Kick car legislation” in the state of New York, it's been adopted in a few of the states so far. We hope that at nationwide and then as to somebody that builds a car buys chaser, buys the engine, buys the mufflers and assembles it in the garage can then put it on the road and register the car.
Female: Okay. Now if you're doing business across states and things like that this is an important legislation you should know about I guess is far vehicles and things like that. How can a business donor find out about that different legislation, variation of the states?
Bill: Well if they go the SEMA website, SEMA.org they’ll list their representatives in there and if their representative is not a part of our car and we just write them a letter and encourage them to be involved you know that’s the one thing that I would have encourage all small business owners to do that. I can say this is a business owner and then for many years that we don’t always engage our employees and the people around us in our regions. We think that our regions are only ours and they're not also threatening to the livelihood of our employees and of our friends and neighbors.
So we can be a little more involved recognize the legislatives that were fighting for their interest their point of view whether it would be a small business of the auto enthusiast hobby and then support those and then those that are not write them letter informing them trying to get them on the ban laying.
Female: Mr. Rollick you're also an exhibitor at SEMA this year. We talk about you're business.
Bill: Well I went through enough car shows through my involvement and said you know one of the things missing is that we don’t seem to have a portable display that the people can put in the trunk of their car bring out at the car show and put it up and tell about their cars. So I manufactured portable display let your auto design through all the design we have a website letyouroutthedesign.us works in a portable display that can breakdown going to the trunk of the car and they can bring it out and display their cars.
So something again I really love the auto hobby, the enthusiast hobby and I like to be more involved with it.
Female: I don’t know how you find time to be all things to all people small business owner, a legislator and now your president of the SEMA cocas and congratulations on that and thank you for being with us here at SEMA 2007 well were providing with entire coverage here in Las Vegas.
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