Q&A talks about Small Business Week with Bernard Sweeney, Hartford district director for the Small Business Administration. The Small Business Awards program celebrated in this special supplement to The Hartford Business Journal has been a part of the SBA’s program for more than a quarter century.
Q. What do you hope to achieve with the small business week awards program? Is this a national program?
A. Each year, SBA sets aside some time to acknowledge the contributions our small businesses make here in Connecticut. SBA, whose mission is to assist entrepreneurs to get into business, stay in business and expand their businesses, takes the time to honor those outstanding small businesses who represent a category of small businesses. Small Business Week culminates in Washington D.C. honoring those state winners who went on to be selected as national winners in their category. This year Connecticut’s small business week will be held on June 3.
Q. How long has this awards program been around? Have any of the past winners grown themselves to the point they are no longer considered small businesses?
A. SBA’s honoring has been around for a number of years, as long as I have been with the agency, over 25 years. Each year we have honored small businesses.
Q. What is the current small business climate in Connecticut? Our state has a reputation of being slow to be affected by national recessions but taking longer to recover once the recession strikes. Are you finding that to be the case?
A. Yes, we are seeing Connecticut lag behind the other New England states in the percentage of increase in use of the SBA guarantee loan program. As the recession was a little shower to hit Connecticut, so too are we seeing the economy picking up a little slower than other states. Here in Connecticut, we have enjoyed a 59 percent increase in loan activities from the same period last year. Other states in New England are seeing 62 percent and up to 69 percent increase in SBA loan use.
Q. What is the most popular ongoing program offered by the Connecticut district office? What makes it so popular?
A. Without a doubt it is SBA 7a loan program. Currently, because of President Obama’s Recovery Act, SBA is offering a 90 percent guarantee to our participating lenders on our flagship 7a loan program, with no fees charged to the borrower. This undoubtedly has caused the surge in use of the SBA loan program here in Connecticut.
Q. Are there Connecticut-specific programs that are offered by the district office?
A. The Connecticut District Office is a full-service SBA field office. While we no longer process SBA loans in the district offices, we are the lead offices that deal with our participating lenders and assist them to use the SBA guarantee program. Additionally SBA provides resources — SCORE [Service Core of Retired Executives], Connecticut Small Business Development Center and SBA’s Women’s Business Centers. And the district office offers services for government contracting, to minority businesses and to veteran-owned businesses.
Q. What is the federal government’s definition of a small business? Is it driven by employees or annual revenues? Do the numbers change based on the economy?
A. SBA is the federal agency whose charge is to define what constitutes a small business. SBA has established numerical definitions, or “size standards,” for all for-profit industries. Size standards represent the largest size that a business — including its subsidiaries and affiliates — may be to remain classified as a small business concern. There is a size standard for every industry and they vary greatly from one industry to the next.
Retail and service businesses are based on average annual receipts, with $7 million as the most common standard; however, some industries are considerably higher, with the highest being $35.5 million. Wholesale and manufacturing size standards are based on the number of employees; 75 percent of manufacturing firms have 500 employees as the standard, but some are as high as 1,500; wholesale firms have 100 employees as the size standard.