Who Should Be the Next SBA Administrator?
February 25, 2013
What new qualities would describe someone best suited to be the new SBA Administrator? The Shreveport Times’ Rhonda Abrams provides an excellent list of career experiences and job mandates that would make President Obama’s next appointee best suited to represent the small business sector before our federal government. Her list may be hard to top:
1. Someone that can advocate for truly ‘small businesses,’ that we would all recognize as such, not those companies with 1,000 or more employees or those that are truly small for a brief time on the way to being big.
2. Someone who would prod banks to lend more to small business owners of the historically high cash balances they have on hand.
3. A fighter for business counseling and mentors – someone who will embrace the SBDCs, SCORE and Women’s Business Centers.
4. An advocate for the self-employed, those people who contribute more than $1 trillion to our GNP and drastically decrease unemployment.
5. A protector against fraud for companies seeking to take advantage of the JOBS Act funding streams.
6. A louder voice about regulations, particularly those with unintended consequences that harm small business owners.
7. Finally, choose someone who has been a small business owner and met payrolls, personally guaranteed loans and laid awake at night worrying about the economy with plenty to lose hanging in the balance.