Karen Mills
Karen Mills
Karen Gordon Millsserved as the 23rd Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama on December 19, 2008, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on April 2, 2009, and sworn in on April 6, 2009. During her tenure, her office was elevated to the rank of Cabinet-level officer, expanding her power on policy decisions and granting her access to cabinet meetings. On February 11, 2013 she announced resignation as Administrator and left the post on...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth14 September 1953
CountryUnited States of America
We've gotten tremendous support. Everybody now understands how critical it is to help small businesses get out of this recession and into recovery.
We are very much engaged across the government, very much engaged in streamlining and simplifying our activities with borrowers and lenders, because that saves time and saves costs and we believe we can do that while maintaining the same or increased levels of oversight and risk management.
We are not going to be the agency where large businesses can masquerade as a small business and get a contract. We are closing down on fraud, waste and abuse.
We were able in the Recovery Act to get a program where we increased our loan guarantees to 90 percent. Because we had that program, a bank wouldn't have to take that much risk.
We see entrepreneurship and small businesses and supply chains as a critical part of the economic growth and competitiveness agenda.
Among our responsibilities is to make sure that 23 percent of all government contracts go to small businesses. That's about $150 billion annually, from all the government agencies.
I haven't checked this out yet, but one of our guys told me we have a counselor within 45 minutes to an hour of most small businesses in this country. That's really powerful. I call it our bone structure.
My family was in two businesses - they were in the textile business, and they were in the candy business. The conversations around the dinner table were all about the factory floor and how many machines were running and what was happening in the business. I grew up very engaged in manufacturing and as part of a family business.
One of the most important tools we have at the Small Business Administration (SBA) to reach high growth entrepreneurs is the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.
Our economy creates and loses jobs every quarter in the millions. But of the net new jobs, the jobs come from small businesses: both small businesses on Main Street and many of the net new jobs come from high growth, high impact businesses that are located all across the country.
This has always been a small agency with a big mission. But these days, especially, we have to stand up every day, deliver value into the hands of small-business owners and get taxpayers the biggest bang for their buck so that we can help these job creators do what they need to do.
We have to keep the momentum going in the economy. And we have to make sure that we give small businesses as much cash and liquidity as possible so they have the confidence to hire that next worker.
We really accomplished what we set out to do with the Recovery Act programs, which was to fill the lending gap created by the crisis.
If you want to have prosperity here, we really have to see our small businesses able to grow and compete around the world.