Apr. 16--WICHITA -- In early 2002, Jim and Janeen Miller retired early from their jobs at the former Raytheon Aircraft Co. and started a business selling quilting supplies and sewing machines.

Just a few months earlier, Glenn Tate and Gregory Hiser left their jobs as underwriters and brokers at insurance giant Aon Corp. to start a firm insuring airplanes.

Today, Sunflower Quilts and Air Capital Insurance are not only still in business, they are growing.

Both businesses were launched on the heels of the last national recession, which is typically the time when more people launch new businesses, experts said.

And both firms' owners share some characteristics that experts said are key to ensuring small business survival -- whether that start comes in good times or in bad.

Knowledge, passion

According to the Small Business Administration, the odds are against a small business surviving, much less thriving, in the early years: Two-thirds are still around in the first two years while 44 percent survive four years. Only 31 percent are still around after seven years.

Janeen Miller started a quilting business because it was her hobby nine years before she and Jim started Sunflower Quilts.

"You don't want to start a quilt store without some knowledge," she said.

Knowledge and passion are two qualities that help determine whether a business will be successful, said John Willoughby, a retired Southwestern College administrative dean and a counselor for the Service Corps of Retired Executives, or SCORE, which provides mentoring and counseling services to small businesses.

Passion, he said, helps entrepreneurs stay focused through the many hours they'll put in before and after start-up.

"They need to find something that they are passionate about, that they love doing," said Tim Pett, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Wichita State University.

Air Capital's Hiser and Tate also brought passion and knowledge to their business, which specializes in insuring airplanes owned by individuals, corporate flight departments, manufacturers and fixed-base operators.

Both men worked in that business for several decades before buying the small-client business of Aon, leasing a corner of the Hayford building downtown and employing two.

"Now we have the whole building and 16 (employees)," said Tate, Air Capital's chairman.

Careful preparation

But there was a hitch to the launch of Air Capital.