Scott Hauge is the Scarlet Pimpernel of the small business community. He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere.
Hauge’s day job is president and owner of CAL Insurance & Associates, a company that specializes in providing insurance for small to medium-size businesses. But his real job is operating as a classic San Francisco activist, representing small business on local, state, and national levels almost every day. Hauge is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable and effective small-business leaders in the country, and last year was named the National Small Business Association’s Advocate of the Year.
Hauge is a fourth-generation San Franciscan whose great-grandfather was in the Fire Department, fought the l906 fire, and later died fighting another San Francisco fire. His grandfather was a cable car grip. His parents met in the San Francisco Public Library. His father took over CAL Insurance in 1960, and Hauge came into the firm in the early l970s after an activist student life at Washington State University at Pullman. He wrote a thesis on Karl Marx, and was a leader in the student movement whose anti-Vietnam War protests closed down the university two years in a row.
Hauge became politically active in San Francisco shortly after he joined CAL Insurance. He was a major force in the battle in the mid-l980s to establish a Small Business Commission, the first in the country, and served as its first commissioner.
He has introduced government legislation on behalf of small business in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Washington, DC. He is currently a member of more than 20 boards and commissions in San Francisco and California.
He founded Small Business Advocates, a local advocacy group, and Small Business California, a statewide advocacy group, and was a leading advocate during last year’s successful campaign for a Small Business Advisory Center, a City Hall agency helping small businesses with permits and navigating the city’s bureaucracy.
A lot of City Hall progressives consider Hauge a conservative, but his Small Business California organization is considered the most liberal small business group in the state.
He’s a Democrat, and cornered Hillary Clinton early on in the presidential campaign and tried to get her to put small business issues on her agenda. So far, he reports, no luck.
Hauge likes to say his proudest activity is serving as vice chair of the Volunteers in Medicine program. The program has 6l clinics around the country that recruit retired physicians, nurses, and dentists as volunteers to provide health services to the working uninsured. Next stop: San Francisco.
Hauge maintains that San Francisco is the only city in the country that has the infrastructure — with the city’s Small Business Commission and the new assistance center — to really help small business.
"Now we just have to get City Hall to pay attention."
SCOTT HAUGE
CAL Insurance & Assoc., Inc
2311 Taraval, SF
(415) 680-2109