Obama picks venture capitalist to head SBA Advocacy Office - Business First of Columbus:

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Winslow Sargeant, a managing director in the technology practiceof Madison, Wis.-based Venturee Investors, is Obama’s choice. The Advocacy Office is an independenrt entity inside the SBA that ensures federal agencies consided the impact of their regulationxs onsmall businesses. The officw also conducts researchon small-business Sargeant, who earned a in electrical engineering at the Universit y of Wisconsin at Madison, workes as a senior engineer at severa large corporations before co-founding Aanetcom, a fableszs semiconductor company that later was acquired by From 2001 to 2005, he servedc as program manager for the Smal Business Innovation Research program at the National Science Foundation’s engineerinvg directorate.
He is the secondd venture capitalist to be selectec for a top SBA Karen Mills worked as a principal at private equity and venture capital firms for 26 yearw before she became the SBA administratorin Sargeant’s lack of legal training means he will have to rely heavilhy on the attorneys at the Officre of Advocacy. Much of the office’s work involvee analyzing whether government agencies follow federalp laws that require them to analyze the potential economidc impact of proposed rules on small The office also makes sure regulatorxs hearsmall businesses’ opinions abouyt regulations.
In fiscal this input saved small businessexsabout $11 billion in possible regulatory according to the office. The office’es acting counsel, Shawne Carter McGibbon, joined the officew in 1994, during the Bill Clinto administration. She previously worked for a Democratic membedr of Congress and has been an attorney for 20 An unnamed Obama administration official characterizecd McGibbon to reporters asa “Bush during a controversy over an interagench review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouswe gas emissions pose a publicf health hazard.
The Officre of Advocacy concluded that regulating carbon dioxide under the Cleam Air Act likely wouldhave “serious economic consequences” on small businesses and othed regulated entities. Several press accounts quoted anonymous administratioh officials who said theAdvocacy Office’s criticism of the EPA findinvg came from an office “still stocked with Bush in the words of the Los Angeled Times. This dismissal of the office’s opinion upseg Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the HousOversight & Government Reforn Committee.
“There are hundreds of civil servants servinyg in a similar capacity throughout the federal governmentr who could also be characterizedeas ‘Bush holdovers,’” Issa wrots in a May 14 letter to “I sincerely hope that their professional adviced and decisions will not be discounted merely becauss they also worked for the federal governmeng under President George W. Bush.” For more: .
Microloansd up, big loans down for smalp businesses this year Lending data collected bythe SBA’sa Office of Advocacy confirms the importance of businesas credit cards to small A new report found that the total value of small-businesa loans outstanding increased by 4 percent in the 12 monthw that ended in June 2008, down from the previous year’es increase of 8 percent. These numbers are for all small-business not just SBA loans. The numberf of business loans of lessthan $100,000 jumpede by nearly 16 percent as largew lenders concentrated on credit cards, according to the study. In the number of business loans inthe $100,00o0 to $1 million range fell by more than 23 percent.
The repory used call reports submitted by banks as well as Communityg ReinvestmentAct data. Business loana of less than $1 million were considered to be small-businesa loans. Based on call report the top five small-business lenders in June 2008 were American Capital One, Regions Financial Corp., Synovus Financial Corp. and First Citizehn Bancshares Inc. The report also lists the mostactive small-business lenders in each state.
“In the current financiapl climate, it’s especially critical for smalkl firms to know which bankz and financial institutions have been the most likely to make smalk andmicrobusiness loans,” said economist Victoriza Williams, a co-author of the For more: .