SBA Offers Broad Range of Support
Pat Brown-Dixon is the regional administrator for the SBA’s Region VII, which encompasses Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska.
“We’re not your grandmother or grandfather’s SBA.””
That’s how Pat Brown-Dixon, regional administrator for the Small Business Administration’s Region VII, opened her remarks at the U.S.SourceLink national conference in April. Brown-Dixon provided kickoff remarks on day two of the conference that brought together U.S.SourceLink affiliates from across the country.
The SBA has three strategic goals:
- Growing businesses and creating jobs
- Building an SBA that meets the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s small businesses
- Serving as the voice of small business
Programs fall into four main areas: capital, contracting, counseling and disaster assistance. In FY13, the SBA supported almost $30 billion in loans. The SBA manages small business contracting programs for all federal agencies and in FY12 almost hit its goal of 23 percent for small business from all federal contracting. Counseling is provided through Small Business Development Centers. In FY13, more than 500,000 clients were counseled and trained through that national network. SCORE counseling accounted for almost 350,000 clients counseled and trained.
The SBA has added some focused counseling areas in the past few years, including encore entrepreneurs (over age 50), boots to business (veterans), entrepreneurship education for owners of high-growth businesses, start young (for students) and VBOC (veteran business owners)
Business disaster loan assistance totaled about $50 million for FY13. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005 mark the major disaster lending activity in the last 20 years, with the Northridge Earthquake (1994) second and Hurricane Sandy (2013) third.
Brown-Dixon closed by reiterating SBA’s commitment to supporting startups and small business, offering to help and collaborate however possible.
Content contributed by Kate Hodel, KCSourceLink. MOSourceLink is a proud affiliate of U.S.SourceLink, America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs.
