Jayne Armstrong Joins SBA as Iowa’s New District Director

Patricia Brown-Dixon, the Region VII Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, announced today that Jayne Armstrong has been hired as the new district director for the SBA’s Iowa District Office. Armstrong began her duties in the Iowa District SBA Office on January 12, 2015.

Armstrong will be responsible for the management and delivery of the SBA’s programs and services in Iowa at the Des Moines District SBA Office and the Cedar Rapids Branch SBA Office.  She will also oversee the SBA grant-funded counseling and training resource partners in the district, which include SCORE and Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) across the state.

“Jayne Armstrong brings to Iowa extensive SBA management experience, the ability to build strong partnerships and an enthusiasm for increasing public knowledge about SBA programs and initiatives; these will greatly benefit the small businesses in Iowa,” said Patricia Brown-Dixon, SBA’s Region VII Administrator for the states of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska.

Armstrong joins the Iowa District Office from the SBA’s Office of Field Operations in Washington, DC. She previously served SBA as the district director of the Virginia, Delaware and West Virginia offices, and as a regional advocate in the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, where she coordinated public policy at the federal and state levels and organized the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. In 1996, she represented the SBA in Russia during the first formal exchange between U.S. and Russian entrepreneurs.

Prior to her SBA career, Armstrong worked in the advertising, high-tech economic development and higher education development fields in North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. A native of Pittsburgh, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from West Virginia University (WVU), where she served as student body president.

She was recognized by former U.S. Senator Ted Kaufman (DE) on the Senate floor as a “Great Federal Employee” for her commitment to small business. She is the recipient of the Risk Management Association’s Business Woman of the Year Award in Virginia, Delaware Today’s Women in Business Award, the New Castle County (DE) Chamber’s Entrepreneurial Advocate of the Year Award and the Delaware YWCA’s Woman of Power, Style and Brilliance Award.

She also was recognized by the Delaware Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) with its Bridge Builder Award (twice), the NAWBO Richmond, VA chapter as its Ambassador of the Year, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) with its Excellence in Communications Award, Girls Inc. of Delaware as its Volunteer of the Year and The State Journal as one of “The 55 Best Things About West Virginia.”

Armstrong has been active in a wide variety of non-profits and business organizations throughout her career, with a strong focus on women in business and academic interests. She has been an active member of Rotary for over 25 years, NAWBO for 20 years and has served on numerous WVU alumni chapter boards. More recently she served on the advisory councils of Delaware State University’s School of Business and Wilmington University, the Delaware Financial Literacy Institute/Delaware Money School and as a mentor to Delaware Futures, a college bound program for at risk students.