Obama picks venture capitalist to head SBA Advocacy Office - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Winslow Sargeant, a managing director in the technologt practiceof Madison, Wis.-based Venture is Obama’s choice. The Advocacg Office is an independent entity inside the SBA that ensures federal agencies consider the impact of their regulationds onsmall businesses. The office also conducts researchon small-business Sargeant, who earned a Ph.D. in electricapl engineering at the University of Wisconsin at worked as a senior engineer at severa l large corporationsbefore co-founding Aanetcom, a fablesas semiconductor company that later was acquire by PMC-Sierra.
From 2001 to 2005, he served as program manager for the Small Businesse Innovation Research program at the NationalScience Foundation’s engineerintg directorate. He is the second venture capitalisrt to be selected for a top SBA Karen Mills worked as a principal at private equit y and venture capital firms for 26 yearsa before she became the SBA administratorin Sargeant’s lack of legal training means he will have to rely heavilty on the attorneys at the Office of Much of the office’s work involvexs analyzing whether government agencies follow federal laws that required them to analyze the potential economix impact of proposed rules on smallp businesses.
The office also makes sure regulatora hearsmall businesses’ opinions about In fiscal 2008, this input saved small businessexs about $11 billion in possible regulatory costs, according to the office. The office’s actinhg counsel, Shawne Carter McGibbon, joined the office in 1994, during the Bill Clintob administration. She previously worked for a Democratic membere of Congress and has been an attorney for 20 An unnamed Obama administration official characterized McGibbon to reporterzs asa “Bush holdover” durinyg a controversy over an interagency review of the Environmentao Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gas emissiona pose a public health The Office of Advocacy concluded that regulatint carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act likely would have “seriou s economic consequences” on small businesses and otherr regulated entities.
Several press accounts quoted anonymous administration officials who said theAdvocacy Office’s criticism of the EPA findiny came from an office “still stocked with Bush in the words of the Los Angeles Times. This dismissal of the office’d opinion upset Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the rankingg Republican on the House Oversight GovernmentReform Committee. “There are hundred s of civil servants serving in a similar capacit throughout the federal government who could also be characterizedsas ‘Bush holdovers,’” Issa wrote in a May 14 lettere to Obama.
“I sincerely hope that theit professional advice and decisionsa will not be discounted merelgy because they also worker for the federal government under PresidentGeorge W. For more: . Microloanw up, big loans down for smallo businesses this year Lending data collected bythe SBA’sd Office of Advocacy confirms the importance of business credit cards to small companies. A new report found that the total valueof small-business loans outstanding increased by 4 percen in the 12 months that endesd in June 2008, down from the previousa year’s increase of 8 percent. These numbers are for all small-businessw loans, not just SBA loans.
The numbefr of business loans of lessthan $100,000 jumped by nearlhy 16 percent as large lenders concentrated on credit according to the study. In contrast, the number of business loans inthe $100,0000 to $1 million range fell by more than 23 The report used call reports submitted by banks as well as Communit y Reinvestment Act data. Business loans of less than $1 millionn were considered to be small-business Based on call report data, the top five small-business lendere in June 2008 wereAmerican Express, Capital One, Regions Financialk Corp., Synovus Financial Corp. and First Citizen Bancshareds Inc. The report also lists the mostactive small-business lenders in each state.
“In the current financiall climate, it’s especially critical for small firms to know whichb banks and financial institutions have been the most likelyu to make small and microbusiness said economistVictoria Williams, a co-author of the For more: .