Doing Business With the Small Business Administration

409 3rd Street SW, Washington, DC 20416 (800) U-ASK-SBA 1953 Hector Barreto 3,026 permanent employees, 1,221 temporary employees for disasters SBA provides financial, technical and management assistance to help start, run and grow small businesses. It is the largest single financial backer of such businesses, and provides loans, loan guarantees and disaster loans worth more than $45 billion. It also has a venture capital portfolio of $13 billion. 93 field offices nationwideLast year, President Bush signed legislation that temporarily lowers fees on SBA lending programs to help businesses affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. About $600 million was provided for these businesses.2003 budget: $1.1 billion2002 budget: $1.1 billionXXXSPLITXXX- May 1997 Robbins, N.C. Silver Spring, Md. Wife; two sons, both grown, in Greensboro, N.C.; three grandchildren Gardening, travel, now taking up golf. "Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History," by Erik Larson Bachelor of science degree in engineering mathematics from North Carolina A&T State University.I've seen IT become a focal point within the organization ... capital planning and enterprise architecture are now a way of doing IT business within the agency. It's sort of surprising, because people like doing things on their own. The agency has come together and realized IT needs to be done in coordinated fashion, not as stovepiped separates. I thought it would be a lot more difficult than it has been. ... The thing I like about SBA is that we're able to get things done, we're able to agree and implement things. I like my job here.I think we have two. Key is IT security, which everyone faces and deals with. Second is moving forward to implement e-gov initiatives, and not the ones we talk about in a broad sense, but using the Internet more to deliver services. We're doing a good job in getting information out to people; now we want to transact business, complete applications, apply for businesses, etc. A third challenge is upgrading the IT infrastructure to supply staff with the tools they need to be productive in an e-gov environment.We try to do as much business as we can with smaller and minority firms. I try to find what their strengths are. I try to determine if the skills of the key staff in the company match the task we want performed. It gives me more comfort and puts them in a better position to succeed in that task and in additional contracts. ... With larger companies, I look for those that will listen to our requirements and not sell us a generic solution. It's important I find companies willing to listen to what we need and to our approach. XXXSPLITXXX-