Who Said That?

" Seven years ago, this was like the 1849 Gold Rush. People didn’t know the gold was there, but I saw it."

Seven years ago when Enrique Rios opened Fingerprint Technologies on Southwest Eighth Street in Coral Gables, he worked out of a 200-square-foot office, bought his copy paper by the ream, and juggled working full time in the narcotics unit at the Coral Gables Police Department while his wife manned the office.

“You had to go outside just to change your mind,” he jokes.

Today, his fingerprinting business includes a mobile unit and three offices, with locations also in Palmetto Bay and Hialeah. Rios has a staff of six and revenue exceeding $1 million annually. And he buys his paper by the pallet.

Both luck and tenacity fueled his rapid growth, said Rios, who plans to retire this month after 25 years with the police department. He opened his business just as technology in fingerprinting allowed easy use of scanning machines, doing away with sloppy and inefficient ink processing. The demand in fingerprinting also increased, with background and identity verification becoming a prerequisite for everything from state jobs to coaching youth soccer.

Read more at the Miami Herald.