Before a group of businesswomen at the Women”™s Business Development Council in Stamford on Tuesday, Maria Contreras-Sweet told a story she knew well.
Contreras-Sweet, the administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, spoke about the girl born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the daughter of migrant workers, whose grandmother told her that someday, maybe, she could work in an office and be a secretary.
“I said, gee, Grandma, I do hold office, and I am a cabinet secretary,” Contreras-Sweet said, concluding the story of how she went from moving to the U.S. to working at Westinghouse, to becoming California”™s secretary of business, transportation and housing under Gov. Gray Davis, to being named SBA administrator by President Barack Obama last year. It was a story she hoped would inspire the small-business owners in the audience of 30-plus ”“ among them, an ice cream shop owner and the founder of an outsourced administrative assistant service ”“ to achieve their goals in business.
- Maria Contreras-Sweet, the administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Photo by Leif Skodnick
“I don”™t believe that she ever imagined that,” Contreras-Sweet said, referring to her grandmother. “It was less about me, and more about this country and its social mobility, that someone could come in and harvest opportunity.”
Contreras-Sweet made the visit to the WBDC, which provides entrepreneurial and financial counseling and training, to promote the SBA”™s efforts as a loan guarantor to small businesses nationwide and encourage support for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement, as well as hear from women in small businesses on how the SBA could improve its programs.
“I”™m using this opportunity during March, which is Women”™s History Month, to come and visit Connecticut, because there are so many dynamic opportunities here,” Contreras-Sweet told the Business Journal. “We want them to learn more about the SBA”™s services, around counseling, capital and contracting, so they can benefit from our programs.”
Contreras-Sweet said that since taking office, she has implemented a three-pronged strategy to improve the administration”™s services and increase access for women and minority-run businesses. The SBA had gotten feedback that SBA-backed loans were difficult to navigate, expensive and difficult to find.
“We streamlined the paperwork extensively,” Contreras-Sweet said. “You do have to pay extra fees to get an SBA guarantee, but we”™ve zeroed out fees for SBA loans under $150,000 for both the lender and the borrower, so that”™s helped a lot.”
Additionally, Contreras-Sweet said the SBA has entered into partnerships with credit unions to make more financial institutions available to provide SBA-guaranteed loans.
“We think that three-pronged strategy is going to be effective,” she said. “In minority lending, we already have a 32 percent average increase just since we put these programs in place.”
In addition to providing counseling to small-business owners and the capital that guarantees SBA loans, Contreras-Sweet told the audience at the WBDC that the federal government hopes to achieve its procurement goals by contracting with businesses run by women and minorities.
“The SBA directs 23 percent (of government procurement contracts) to small businesses, and so that”™s a big spend. ”¦ We”™ve met that goal,” Contreras-Sweet said. “We have not met the goal for women, and that”™s only a 5 percent goal. You”™d think that would be easy, but women are not coming forward to sell things to the federal government.”
In the year since she became leader of the SBA, Contreras-Sweet has sought and received congressional approval for a new tool that requires the government to contract with female-owned businesses for procurement when they are available to do so.
While the goal of 5 percent of government procurement contracts being awarded to female-owned businesses hasn”™t been reached yet, Contreras-Sweet said, “I”™m determined that on my watch we”™re going to reach it.”
