Its unique connection to Kansas brought the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to the President Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene to celebrate its 70th Anniversary.
SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman joined Kansas elected officials and more than 100 other Kansans at the library to recognize SBA’s seventy years of service to small business owners.
“For 70 years, the U.S. Small Business Administration has helped entrepreneurs gain the know-how and the funding to start and grow,” said SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman. “The results are undeniable: In the seven decades since its founding, the SBA has financed billions, fueled some of our most iconic brands and innovative industries and helped millions of hopeful entrepreneurs realize their American Dreams of business ownership.”
President Eisenhower signed the Small Business Act into law on July 30th, 1953, resulting in the creation of the Small Business Administration. In 1954 it started to make and guarantee loans for small businesses, loan money to victims of natural disasters and help small businesses get small business contracts. Since its creation, SBA’s mission has been to “aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns.”
“The SBA is a federal agency that helps businesses to access capital when needed. You know to start or to expand into new markets.” said the District Director of the Wichita Office Wayne Bell. “We have a lot of support resources and programs to help individuals and business owners move their ideas forward.”
Currently, the SBA is offering grants and services for small businesses for current concerns, such as cybersecurity with the Cybersecurity for Small Business Pilot Program, and specialized outreach to women, minorities, and armed forces veterans. While continuing to expand access to affordable federal disaster loans in rural communities by leveraging the Rural Communities Act, and deploying disaster recovery and resilience operations for small business owners who were impacted by the fires in Maui County, Hawaii.
“We try to stay on top of issues that affect small businesses and arrange our programs and services such that they’re relevant,” Bell explained.
Bell reported to the Kansas Chamber that the next goal for SBA is to connect more to communities.
“We want to be more relevant for the public and the businesses we serve,” Bell shared. “We’re probably in the future going to have more offices where we’re out in markets and communities, in such a way that we’re closer to the public and not in spaces that may be intimidating. We just want to be closer to the communities we serve.”
Small businesses in Kansas can learn more about the SBA at SBA.gov.
