Owning her own business has been a life-long dream for Lynne Swan, so after she was laid off from AT&T in January 2003 in a corporate downsizing, she acted on her vision.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Lynne Swan, far right, talks with a customer on the telephone while members of her family prepare flower arrangements at Lynne Swan's Floral and Gifts on Forbes Avenue, Downtown. From left are aunt Edith McNeill, and Swan's daughters, Cherie Sheppard, 13, and April Sheppard, 16. Click photo for larger image.

The Point Breeze resident founded Swan's Floral & Gifts, Downtown.

"Prior to the layoff, I had taken classes at Phipps Conservatory for floral design, and years ago I had worked for my aunt on weekends in her Sewickley flower shop," said Swan, 50.

Swan is representative of a growing number of African-American businesswomen who are striking out on their own.

Across the country, the number of firms owned by women of color are rising four times faster than the national average, according to the National Women's Business Council, a bipartisan federal advisory council based in Washington, D.C..

The council estimates that there were 414,472 privately held firms whose majority owners were African-American women in 2004, and that those firms employed more than 250,000 people and generated $20 billion in sales.

In Pittsburgh, long considered by many African-Americans to be a tough town in which to start a business, African-American women now own and operate a wide variety of businesses. There are insurance companies, consulting firms, hair salons, accounting and tax companies, Web site development, e-commerce and marketing firms, a firm that sells bottled water and flower shops such as Swan's.

Swan, though, is quick to note that her shop, in the lobby of the Allegheny Building, sells a lot more than flowers. It also has candies, cards, soda and other items.

"We are servicing people who have offices here," Swan said, estimating that about 150 customers stop by every day. "We also have a lot of people who come in off the street, and we also have a bus stop right here, which helps a lot."

It's a family affair for her because her daughters, Cherie and April Sheppard, come in after school and work for her, as does her aunt, Edith McNeil, who owned the former McNeil's Florists in Sewickley.

The most challenging aspect of getting started was devising a business plan, Swan said. "It took several months to do it. I went through a program at Duquesne University for entrepreneurs, which helped a lot.

"It wasn't hard to get my idea on paper, but the hard part was the profit and loss statements, charts and graphs. That was really challenging. But it was a good experience and I'm glad I went through it. It allowed me to see every aspect of my business projections and other things," Swan said

Swan said she did not feel that Pittsburgh was any more difficult than any other city in terms of starting a business.

"Just knowing where to find the resources is important for African-Americans," she said, adding that Downtown is perhaps undergoing struggles that other cities already have faced.

She said it was helpful that there was an abundance of local places to learn about starting and running a business, including the Duquesne program, the state's CareerLink centers and the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), which helps budding entrepreneurs get under way.

"Anybody who wants to start a business needs to go through these programs," Swan said. "There are so many ins and outs that you don't really know that you need people with expertise to help you."

Swan admitted that she's had her runs of bad luck like anybody else starting their own business.

Early in her adult life, well before she started working at AT&T, she attempted to launch a business venture that would sell goods from a bus that she drove to senior citizens centers and hangouts.

"I didn't do a business plan, and I jumped right into it without really looking," she said. " I made money, but I realized this type of business wasn't for me. But I still wanted my own business."

Her advice to those starting out? "Keep the faith. Keep your head up and take advantage of several of these free programs out here. And know somebody who has experience and expertise.

"Too often, we try to protect our costs by doing things ourselves," she said. "Then we end up having to pay money to do it right in the first run."