How do you get through an economic downturn?

Meet quintessential capitalist Albert Garcia.

Garcia's got what many financial experts will tell you is the perfect answer. He doesn't have one business, he's got at least five – more if you count the petting zoo he plans to open near his Mexican food takeout business.

"It just kind of happened," said the 59-year-old Garcia. "I don't like to watch TV, so I've got to have something to do."

Garcia owns a custom door manufacturing company in Rancho Cordova and a powder-coat paint business in McClellan Business Park. He sells goats and sheep that he raises in Wilton, and runs a gift shop and sells Christmas trees during the holidays on an old farm outside of Elk Grove.

"That's the classic American way," said Andrew Hargadon, a professor in the Graduate School of Management at UC Davis, and director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. "You earn money in one business and then you use that money to invest in other businesses."

There is no underestimating the importance of mom-and- pops to the American economy. Small businesses make up half of the country's private, non-farm gross domestic product and employ 52 percent of California's work force, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. And, in the past decade, they created about 70 percent of new jobs.

Garcia said he's using these tough economic times as an opportunity to streamline, doing things like moving his door business to a much smaller, 9,000-square-foot warehouse.

A slumping economy simply means the ones that emerge will be even stronger, said Sanjay Varshney, dean of the college of business administration at California State University, Sacramento.

"It's smart to make sure you're lean and mean so when the cycle reverses itself, you're positioned very well to take advantage of the upside," he said.

Garcia began his entrepreneurial journey while doing carpentry finish work alongside his father after returning from the Vietnam War. He saw profit in buying blank doors, then cutting and prehanging them for easy installation.

He opened US Building Materials in Sacramento in 1977 and expanded eight years later to a 21,500-square-foot spot in Rancho Cordova. Business ebbed, but mainly flowed.

When new opportunity arose, he seized it. In 1990, Garcia won a contract to do the interior doors for a chain of retail stores. But the plans stipulated powder coating, a more eco-friendly painting technique where a powder is applied and then baked on. Garcia researched the method, bought the equipment and opened US Powder Coating.

The livestock came about a decade ago when Garcia got interested in breeding sheep for meat. He now grazes about 200 Dorpers – a South African sheep – on the land of some friends and 36 goats on his own 4.5 acres.

He slaughters some of the animals himself, to be cooked in the classic Mexican pit barbecue style, or he sells to Islamic Meat & Poultry, a halal meat processor in Stockton. About once a week, someone comes by the ranch to buy a live goat or lamb to be eaten at a ceremony or celebration.

"They're Middle Eastern, Fijian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Korean, Cambodian, and because I'm Mexican, I get a lot of Mexicans, too," Garcia said.

Not all of Garcia's business ventures have succeeded. His first foray into the restaurant business lasted three years and ended in February 2008 when he closed Veracruz Cafe in Folsom.

"The competition was tremendous," Garcia said. "We could have struggled and struggled and it would never really have taken off to make the kind of money we would have expected out of a business."

But on his way to work one day, Garcia noticed a 1.5-acre plot of land at Sheldon and Grant Line roads. The former Sheldon Farms was for sale.

The ideas started flowing: There could be a gift shop, a petting zoo, a Mexican restaurant, fresh candy and fudge, fruits and vegetables, an events venue. The location made sense. "There are 12,700 cars that drive by each day," he said. "If we get 1 percent to stop in and spend 10 bucks, that's a good day."

He bought the property in 2007. First came the Christmas trees, which he sold the past two seasons. Garcia found an Oregon grower, bought flocking and netting equipment, and took kids on rides atop a classic locomotive.

The Ol' Farm House gift shop with dog key chains, cherry-print aprons and pig planters, opened two months ago, as did Barn Door Tacos, which offers carnitas, chiles rellenos and full family dinners for takeout. The rest, including the Southern specialty of boiled peanuts, will come later.

The key to Garcia's ability to grow, he said, is his extended family. His dad tends to animals, a brother and son oversee the powder coating, a sister cooks for the restaurant, his daughter buys for the gift shop, nieces and nephews sell Christmas trees, and his wife does all the books.

"It's funny," said his wife, Rebecca Garcia. "I would never have thought we'd be selling Christmas trees."

Call The Bee's Gina Kim, (916) 321-1228.