Small Business Administration

US Veterans Podcast

Ron Johnson: Welcome to the US Small Business Administration, your small
business resource. I\'m Ron Johnson. Everyday, US Veterans start and
expand their own small business with SBA's help. Veterans use SBA loan
guarantees, management advice, and government contracting programs to
sell products and services here and overseas.

To answer questions about SBA's programs for veterans, my guest is Bill
Elmore. He is the SBA's Associate Administrator for Veterans' Business
Development. Thank you for joining the program, Bill.

William D. Elmore: Well, thank you, Ron. And I\'m pleased that you have
asked me to be here.

Ron Johnson: What does the SBA have available to veterans who want to
start or expand their small businesses?

William D. Elmore: Ron, usually when I\'m asked that question I walk
people through a sort of a simple quick overview at the agency so
veterans will have a better understanding of the answer. Veterans are
used to dealing with the Department of the Veterans Affairs, but we are
nowhere near that size and scale.

Most of our work is delivered through third party and partners. So from
a size perspective, we are your guides into the full range of services
and programs that we offer, and I\'ll give you sort of a basic overview
of that. For example, we have about 1,500 different kinds of small
business development centers around the country. Some are focused on
women, some are focused on veterans, many are focused on technology, and
a broad range of issues or arenas or opportunities. But, any one of
those 1,500 centers, whether it is a score chapter or are small business
development center or a veterans business development center offer and
will provide assistance to any veteran that request it.

Ron Johnson: How can a vet use the SBA to help finance their startup
cost or expand their businesses?

William D. Elmore: Well, our lending programs are similar in some ways
to our technical assistance programs, so it was 1,500 centers I
mentioned. And that is that we have in the range of 6,000 to 7,000
lending institutions, primarily banks but not entirely; some savings and
loans, some credit unions, microlenders, local development corporations,
and so on that use various SBA resources, primarily loan guarantees but
not entirely that to make credit decisions for local borrowers.

So a veteran can go to any of our lending partners, whether they are
preferred or a guaranteed lender or one of our micro-lenders. That
really kind of depends on what the interest is that the veteran business
owner is pursuing and what the level of capital, for example, that they
are looking for.

Ron Johnson: And finally, Bill, what help does the SBA offer to veterans
who want to sell goods to the government?

William D. Elmore: Well, we have a really broad range of programs; all
of which veterans participate in, but some of those programs are driven
by different kinds of eligibility other than veteran status. So I\'ll
touch on the broad range, and then I\'ll talk about a couple of
specifics.

For example, we organize and we manage the 8(a) Program, the HUBZone
Program, the Small Disadvantage Business Program, the Service-Disabled
Veteran-Owned Small Business Program, the Native American Program, and
the Women-Owned Business Program.

Now, veterans, given the sort of unique, diverse nature that veterans
are because veterans encompass every kind of American that there is,
veterans participate in all those programs. Most veterans though will be
interested, especially those that are service connected disabled, will
be interested in the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business
Program, which is a goal program as defined by Congress.

And our efforts are essentially to work with federal agencies to try to
help them identify and consider service-disabled veterans and, to a
degree, veterans as well as potential contractors and in those
instances, whether it is a prime contract that already has a contract,
then to consider Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses and
Veteran-Owned Small Businesses as well for potential subcontracts.

In the role SBA plays, there is a fair amount of hands-on direct
assistance, and that can be available to any veteran through our field
staff that are called procurement center representatives, for example,
our commercial market representatives.

But the other part of our role is really to try to help create and set
the policy process for government and negotiate goals annually with
every federal agency that has procuring authority to work with them, to
help them, and to push them when necessary to try to achieve the full
range of procurement goals, including service-disabled veterans and
veterans.

Ron Johnson: Bill, it has been a pleasure of having you with us.

William D. Elmore: Well, thank you, and I certainly would urge that any
veteran who is interested in any of our services, generally, wherever
you live, you are going to be in relative proximity to one of our 68
district offices, and each of those district office has a Veterans
business development officer assigned to that. And that person, that man
or woman, is generally going to be your starting point as a veteran for
any access to information about understanding about the full range of
programs and services that SBA offers, either directly or through our
third-party partners.

And we have only touched on those in a very simple way today, so there
is a breadth of things from international trade to, again, procurement
to try and to understand and identify where one might secure capital,
whether it is from \[indiscernible\] or capital perspective or a
microloan and everything in between to, again, the full range of
business planning, business counseling, technical assistance training,
those kinds of things. What we can do is we can help any veterans sort
of cut through the red tape and learn the lessons of people that have
gone before them to try to maximize their ability to succeed.

And perhaps the last thing I would say is we know now from our fairly
recent research and some work from the Department of Commerce as well,
that about 14 percent of veterans are successfully self-employed. We
have the highest rate of self-employment success of any group of
identifiable Americans.

SBA is here to help you, as a veteran, understand what assistance, what
resource, and what lessons have been learned by others to help you
maximize your ability to succeed.

Ron Johnson: For more information on SBA assistance to veterans, check
on our website at [www.sba.gov\\services\\specialaudiences]().

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