Isabella Casillas Guzman learned first-hand what makes small business successful growing up in California, where her father owned a chain of veterinary practices.
“What I admired most about my father was his relationship with the community. Everyone who walked through that door was so special to him and vice versa,” Guzman said. “The impact he’s had in his neighborhood has been truly remarkable.”
Guzman, sworn in as the 27th administrator of the Small Business Administration on March 17, 2021, spoke to the Columbia Regional Business Report after stopping at Benedict College as part of a bus tour in support of National Small Business Week. Benedict became one of two historically black colleges and universities to launch a Women’s Business Center in 2020.
“Still focusing — after working at his company — on that customer experience is what drives me,” said Guzman, who represents the nation’s more than 35.2 million small business owners. “I first look through the lens of a customer at all times in our design and implementation. entrepreneurship – you look at what its needs are and seek to transform the SBA to better serve it…. My dad was able to pursue his American dream, and my grandmother before him. I really appreciate the value of (entrepreneurship) and I want to be able to bring more communities with fairness.”
Extending this equity has become especially important as the country’s small businesses continue to recover from the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. the National Federation of Independent BusinessesThe Small Business Optimism Index fell in January to 97.1, down 1.8 points from December, with 22% of business owners saying inflation was their most important issue. Supply chain blockages and difficulty in hiring enough workers are two other concerns that are driving down small business confidence.
“We have a solid base,” Guzman said. “We’ve had a historic economic recovery with 7.4 million jobs created since (President Biden) took office, along with the fastest rate of economic growth in four decades.”
Guzman called small businesses “the giants of our economy,” noting that they created two-thirds of those jobs.
“Like any other time in the past 10 years, women and people of color are the ones starting businesses at high rates,” she said. “We saw 5.4 million people decide to start a business in 2021. That’s 20% more than any year on record, and so this tour is to celebrate all of those new entrepreneurs, those established businesses that have had to pivot and adapt during the pandemic, and ensure we can get them the resources they need to survive. And that’s capital to fund businesses, that’s market access to grow businesses with revenue opportunities with the federal government or online through digital marketplaces, and that’s networks and support.
In 2021, the SBA administered nearly $416.3 billion in emergency relief to more than 6 million small businesses through initiatives such as the Paycheck Protection Program, emergency loans COVID-19 economic disaster and loans for hard-hit industries such as retail and hospitality.
“As they reopen and recover their income, they still face headwinds, and the President is committed to addressing some of the challenges related to inflationary pressures, global supply chain disruptions, as well than workforce challenges,” Guzman said. “The SBA has a role to play. Of course, our small businesses play an important role in expanding our production capacity in the United States. It means doing more here in America and strengthening our supply chain and strengthening our infrastructure.
There are calls to expand this role from those who support the SBA by getting involved in direct lending to small business owners in the future, especially smaller lending than big banks and even community development finance institutions struggle to operate with their balance sheets. Noting that loans through federal pandemic assistance averaged just over $40,000, Guzman said the SBA would welcome the opportunity “to help our lending network to meet the needs of borrowers and leverage the federal government’s balance sheet to underwrite these loans and have them on their books. It could also help our lenders.
“We don’t want to replace or compete. We want to be this true lender of last resort and support private financial markets. … It was part of our proposals within Build Back Better and the President’s agenda. Although Congress has not moved forward on this, we continue to study it and explore the possibility of the SBA doing direct lending. We have the authority. We’ve been doing this since 1953, when we started making disaster loans, and we’ve proven in 2021 with COVID EIDL that we’ve been good at getting money into the hands of businesses.
Guzman also focuses on digital technology, an area she focused on during her tenure as director of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate. In this role, she created Get Digital CA, an initiative to increase adoption of technology and e-commerce.
“We know that micro-entrepreneurship thrives where there is high-speed internet,” she said, adding that the bipartisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Jobs and Investments Act signed into law on November 15 commits more than $60 billion to expand rural broadband access.
Guzman said that as the country continues to forge a post-pandemic path, the SBA is committed to expanding access to its services through broader distribution networks in multiple languages.
“I think there are so many opportunities that could be unlocked if we better support all of our small businesses and innovative startups,” she said. “I think this is a unique moment in time and in history, particularly because of the pandemic and the focus on small businesses and the impact they have.”
Contact Melinda Waldrop at 803-726-7542.
