SBA Tops Off Small Business Week with Outreach to Women Contractors

Gloria Larkin was a presenter at the conference.

Reposted with Permission

CHARLES S. CLARK | MAY 11, 2015 |

With Small Business Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet inexplicably detained, her deputy-designate stepped up on Monday to tell an audience of women-owned small business contractors that they are “central to what the SBA and the Obama administration are trying to do” to promote a 21st century economy built on diversity and innovation.

Counselor to the Administrator Douglas Kramer, in his first public appearance as he awaits Senate confirmation, said that with the worst of the 2009 recession now over,

“the environment is ripe and ready” for women business owners “who often are reluctant to go in and ask for loans when men will do so even when they’re not qualified.”

Kramer hailed Friday’s report of national gains of 223,000 new jobs while speaking at SBA headquarters at the ChallengeHER conference on the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program co-sponsored by the SBA, American Express OPEN and Women Impacting Public Policy. He also praised the administration’s “very successful” National Small Business Week, which ended Friday.

Moving across the country, his agency coordinated a Monday event in Miami focused on immigration; a Tuesday event in Los Angeles centered on trade; a Wednesday gathering in San Antonio that brought in government lenders who provide small businesses with capital; a Thursday event in New York City bringing together veteran investors and Millennial-generation entrepreneurs; and Friday’s National Small Business Awards presentation at the White House.

Also marking the week on Tuesday was the Treasury Department’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, which convened agency procurement officers with private-sector representatives in a panel discussion on small business federal contracting at the main building.

The women-owned business employees received advice on making themselves known to federal contracting officers from Sean Crean, director of SBA’s Office of Government Contracting. “When I came in last November, I had no thoughts about read more