good money i call this small business committee hearing talk today we're celebrating small business week and the men and women who keep our economy running it takes a special kind of person to start a business as most of you know being your own boss doesn't mean a forty hour work week on two month vacation quite the opposite it means spending more time in the office than you friends with conventional jobs but at the end of the day you don't do it for the hours you do it because you are the hardest working people in america you are also some of the most resourceful on the most contains fifteen billion dollars in tax relief for small firms it is also expected to generate twenty billion dollars in loans on investment that is copied all you all can use to start growing again meanwhile the stimulus contains important provisions for helping small firms win government contracts in terms of infrastructure projects a long trip in or stand to gain twenty nine point nine billion dollars but we aren't just giving you the opportunities we're also giving you the tools to see those opportunities later today i will be with my ranking member on the house floor two percent h r twenty three fifty two the job creation through interpret r or two thousand and nine that deals is going to provide critical resources to help your business grow because let's be honest the economic landscape looks very different today than it did a year ago twenty three fifty two where do you feel that training you need to retool your businesses and emerge from that recession stronger than before that he's really gone because we are really counting on you to turn things around this morning we have a very better help sustain our economy and expand opportunities for small business owners from across the country gathering in washington to be honored for their accomplishments entrepreneurs exemplify the great american value of hard work ingenuity and achievement  to recognize small businesses that are difficult economy we salute small companies for the strong commitment to their communities and their contributions to our nation's small businesses power america's economy small firms create the bulk of new jobs and prosperity and strengthens our ties with other nations and create new opportunities for america's workers almost one third of all u s generated by small businesses and ninety seven percent of all u s exports exporters are small companies and women minority and veteran own business is growing rapidly increasing percentage of our economy the successes are impressive there's a lot more we can do our economy is lagging and many small businesses are hurting us make sure small firms have the tools to prosper they need access to capital counseling programs to help them build and expand their businesses increasing taxes employer mandates and regulatory burdens are simply going to cripple the smaller firms by supporting legislation to keep taxes low promote free trade allow small businesses to pull together to purchase health insurance air conditioning in englewood colorado has received several industry awards for his ozone friendly practices and community awareness efforts outside of his business  program welcome to the committee mr wright we look forward to hearing your testimony one of them that we have right now and our company my father purchased this company in one thousand nine hundred ninety amid the recession that looks very similar to the one that we're looking at today his friends counted him down assumed he would soon file bankruptcy and go out of business many changes quickly occurred in our business first thing he did was give himself a pay cut to have all the employees around that's what small business owners do they take care of their people and he knew by taking care of his people happy employees happy customers and happy customers tell a friend my father opened the first for a one point in our industry a paid vacation forced our competitors to follow suit if they wanted to keep up with us our company grew leaps and bounds over those first few years my brother and i have taken over the company and we're now twenty old we do have those forty one employees we're down from the hundred that we had just a few years ago but many of them have not only been with us since the beginning but they retired with our company and that makes us very proud we're twenty six american made ford trucks on the road today we'd like to add to that we're increasing our advertising this year in hopes of offsetting the new construction was with three distinct divisions of the company new construction making up seventy percent of the company add on replacement meant for retrofit making up eighteen percent of our company and twelve percent commercial building our revenues have been as high as twelve million dollars a year this year we hope to half of that but i don't want the committee to feel bad for us we have a plan we've got together as a team of managers and owners and we decided we're not going to participate in this recession we as americans have one hundred percent control over one thing in our life our attitude and our attitude a deal to our team is very strong and we'll keep are going to colorado as a fifty thousand unit furnace replacement market that market is one we plan on tapping into we have twenty competitors that have already gone out of business and we don't see no reason to be one of them in the past we question our father and as to why he didn't want to take advantage of bank loans or lines of credit we paid taxes on our profits already why didn't you disperse them to us why not take advantage of those banks and government agencies so many years gave out death of lehi lines of credit with zero or no accountability my father else bedfast now my brother and i follow in his footsteps of our education was a bit slower than he would have liked his leadership of places in a position to ride out this storm a storm we should have all seen coming when we should have the what can this federal government and this body do for us today you have small business tax incentives to help drive the economy out of this mess give us a reason to buy new vehicles allow us to depreciate them over two years and her instead of the current se newer vehicles are better for the environment it leaves a much smaller carbon footprint and if you saw some of the vehicles my competitors are driving today with black smoke pouring out of them you'd want to offer road to  protect credit when we purchase new manufacturing equipment as we spend money to educate our employees allow us to keep more of that money to reinvest in them our manufacturers offer extended training we can send them all over the country for this training we will have better employees who are able to work faster and longer in our industry without injury our current federal tax rate is extremely high and we don't see any of the loopholes and so many people talk about we like most other companies here are subject to arrest which means our personal taxes and company profit taxes are the same they all come from one pool we pay full tax on those profits and very rarely get the opportunity to remove them from the company instead leaving them in the bank for operating capital to keep employees working if you leave the money in there too long though we can either loan it back to ourselves and pay ourselves interest or we can pay taxes on that money again doesn't make a lot of sense to me we also have health care for our employees the tune of one hundred forty five thousand dollars a year and rising help us keep those soaring costs down not by giving us socialized medicine but by limiting the paperwork that we have to do for both the insured and the  ensure small businesses smart guys out there the opportunity to create software plans to manage our health care system and the private sector this will keep premiums low reduce overhead the doctors can spend time their patients this nation will persevere through this current economic downturn we are a nation of believers in god and the innate goodness that dwells in its citizens this a great nation on earth will strive to reach the american dream the dream pursued by our forefathers and operate in our constitution the to those who are willing to sacrifice to achieve it this body of congress and the c administration should embrace those entrepreneurs and reward us for the risks we take in our willingness to grow the economy and employ people thank you madam chairwoman last was ranking member and members of the committee for your time and willingness to hear my testimony i pray that god will grant you the wisdom to lead this country a nation restored shine as a beacon to the world of what a democracy can and should be thank you very much for being with us i'm going to introduce ms story next for her opening statement mr bacon i did not forget you i understand that mr schuller is interested to introduce you and when given the opportunity if you can make it do that so i'll just put you on hold for a few more minutes ms donya story is president and c e o of quality technical services incorporated located in my district in virginia beach q t s is a minority and women owned business that provides consulting and manages interior design projects missed or has earned several awards for her contributions to the business community including being named by the s b a in two thousand and seven as virginia's women in business champion of the year i had the opportunity to speak yesterday with this story and i was impressed with her perspective on the small business community and with the fact that she has spent a lot of her time giving speeches and participating in mentoring programs educating other entrepreneurs about how to difficult how to navigate the often difficult world of government contracting so appreciate what you've been doing for the small business me looking forward to hearing your thoughts missed or thank you very much i will not read from my t but i'd like to hit some of the highlights and i come here actually to express two very strong feelings number one gratitude i am the daughter i'm in the american dream i'm the daughter of a filipino steward post world war two who came to this country who had lost everything and believe this was a land of opportunity he taught this to his two daughters i being the older of the two my dad at at the age of mid thirty's became a millionaire and he did so by figuring out what coin operated laundromats were all about any girl business from that buying up property in building shopping centers and fortunately died a very young man leaving two daughters and what he left behind was a legacy of this is the land of opportunity i've been in business for twenty nine years and in the last fifteen i've had a great opportunity to learn how to do business with the federal government now some people might laugh and say that's an opportunity but i will tell you being a successful management consultant for fourteen and a half years did not in any way allow me to even dream of how i could actually grow my firm and i took all of the lessons learned from my father as an entrepreneur and i put them in place and i learned the federal government all of this stuff around contracting now what i'm here to talk about today is when i say in gratitude i am so grateful for what has happened to me and my firm and my company but what i'm here to talk about is how we need to shortcut and reengineer some of our small business programs i'm not here to complain so i make a big issue of that but i'm here to say what can we do to think like entrepreneurs and reexamine our small business programs as an example we have women centers we have we have asked in tight times like this i as a taxpayer know that they need more funding but i know that it's very difficult to continue to fund more projects i think we need to take a look at how we can consolidate some of the administrative side of these programs the one thing i did out in the drum that i pound around the country is there is no better customer then the federal government and having done business with a lot of the big names j and j ritz carlton j p morgan chase i could go on and on when i do business with the federal government i know my rights i can read the regs if i hit a bump in the road on any contract i don't need a team of lawyers i will never done the corporate attorneys that they have around the country but what i can do is read a reg and understand what my rights are and go into any meeting and protect my investment in taking a look at some of the programs that we have out there today they are excellent point program but what they miss is the one thing that people call me four years ago we laughingly said that the s b a should call my business one eight hundred don't you can you help me they set me hundreds of companies people find me from around the country i don't know how they're finding me but they find me through different contexts what are programs are missing are the lessons learned from a person like me who stumbled i didn't know what i didn't know and i kept hitting walls and i kept asking i was very needy but i was tenacious in finding out nothing can grow a small company like doing business in the federal sector it is absolutely to single faster way of  that that true next level the hurdle is understanding the culture but any corporation i go into they have their own culture secondly the one challenge financially is and i'm sorry i'm speaking so fast but the one challenge of lines of credit because the opportunity is so great you will find yourself needing a larger line read it then you typically would be commercially you have to know how to read and be tenacious and willing to read the regs but they're understandable and i'm convinced that all of these things around you can't get paid it's too difficult to get through the door folks i continue to say this is a myth that is perpetrated by all the big firms that are trying to keep this all out if i can learn and i used to never say this publicly but i came out of school working for cosmetics industry after a lot of revlon you know it's a girly industry but it's the toughest industry i've ever worked in i mean federal government is opportunity to talk about how we need to get the word out more efficiently and effectively to let other businesses do for themselves what this country allowed for my family thank you very much at this time i'm going to yield to mr bright to introduce the next witness mr not thank you very much madam speaker i'm proud to welcome mr barbara mclean to the small business committee today ms mcclain is from the great town of andalusia alabama is one of my constituents as you know she has been named a small business hero for the success of her small business in covington can here andalusia alabama mr mclean is owner and president of mclean contracting  seventy eighty percent of all the new jobs in the in our economy additionally many small businesses are started during recessions when entrepreneurs have nothing but a vision and a work ethic to make their business is successful so again let not just real estate but the high tech business obviously in my district he's been his business has been awarded sarasota magazine five star real estate award for two consecutive years very own many businesses good morning chairman chairwoman velasquez thank you for convening this conversation about what is required to have success in today's environment congress and pleasure to come up from florida thank you very much for your focus on empowering small businesses to provide a context from my perspective i'll share that my instincts and experiences have drawn me to explain explore various experiences in different parts of the world both my wife and i  learned comes from getting our hands dirty from working from the ground up and learning by trial and error this morning though i'm not going to focus on the processes that have led to my success but rather the underlying philosophy first relationships are fundamental we seek out the win win by interacting with each individual we come in contact with respect and integrity we look for ways to collaborate and build synergies in our vision someone does not need to to lose for us to gain there is plenty of opportunity to go around i believe that in doing this we also attract the type of individuals that value these principles i don't think in terms of hierarchy we are all working together toward a common goal we have a policy about who we work with we must know like and trust them in the big picture does not matter how much money they have or how smart they might be but if they are nice people good people than we will do business i'd like to borrow the meaning of the word i like to buy the meaning behind the word sustainable for me it applies to respecting the environment and also respecting people making decisions based on the long term relationship this is a sustainable business practice in the spirit of honoring the important contributions of individuals allow me to acknowledge the part of one young lady sarah delmonte door daughter of my colleague in playing bringing us here today you and your mom and grace the spirit of collaboration and cooperation that will continue to nurture the success of all of us to being a citizen of the globe the united states  conglomeration of immigrants wanderers who come from generations of immigrants americans of past generations wanted to stay close to home but each generation is a completely new one some some amongst this great melting pot are seeking out their incest or homes or returning to villages they once led in places like india my wife speaks to our children exclusively in spanish we also teach our children chinese and expose them to many european languages we want them to be world citizens while we were love to be wired to be able to speak many languages ourselves we want them to stand on our shoulders to have access to more of their potential and to be equipped to do things differently than the previous generation diversifying to international markets makes sense pragmatically investors still need to put their money to work for higher returns and we have identified opportunities abroad beyond that however i have always had the instinct to engage with many countries and cultures it only feels natural to leverage that same intuition as i take my business and the people working with me abroad so that we may follow our children sustainable business practices lisa and i aim to be emissaries in this respect as well our goal is progress not perfection the wall in france recently i interacted with several thought leaders on the topic of sustainable development one was a commercial building developer from here in philadelphia over he operates two hundred commercial centers around the united states going forward they will only build green not just because it is the healthier thing to do but because governments and insurance companies will require in the future he is just getting a head start in my business we are seeking out opportunities to contribute to keeping our air land and water and cleaner to set an example in conclusion i am looking to align myself with people that are not encumbered by previous ideas all of us in this room cannot even fathom what will transpire in the globalization and sustainability front lisa and i both come from entrepreneurial parents that encourage us to follow this path we're able to emulate what it means to go out on your own to work hard and struggle to build something it certainly has made us stronger so i appreciate the opportunity to engage with us with you here this morning today's hearing is entitled heroes of small business at the age of forty i feel i am still too young to be considered a hero for deeds i have done i hope to have the courage however to lead in contribute my energy towards the health and harmony among people country in the world thank you thank you mr merriman just incredible  beautiful to listen to all these wonderful stories especially here in washington is a breath of fresh air thank you and the chair recognizes the gentle lady from pennsylvania ms told thank you produces electro optical systems for military and law enforcement applications dr patel is responsible for new product design and development engineering and technical support he lenses expertise to some of the most advanced equipment keeping doctoral degrees from carnegie mellon university he began his career as electrical engineer for syracuse research corporation in syracuse new york before coming to army tech in one thousand nine hundred sixty dr but chafee was the chief technical officer for star tron technology where he personally designed multiple night vision products his lifelong dedication to his work has garnered him numerous patents and electric electro optics and night vision fields i welcome partners is located as we said in pennsylvania about an hour north east of pittsburgh and our mission is to provide state of the art night vision technologies to u s state and local governments in the united states and around the world on behalf of our seventy employees were honored to be invited to testify this morning we have three business units optical systems technology where we actually manufacture and sell night vision equipment services where we design employees since our founding in ninety five because we invent design and manufacture real products including over seventy five hundred twenty two and twenty seven night vision sites in our success relies upon  dedicated employees who design fabricate and deliver these cost effective leading edge body systems to our customers we offer all of our employees competitive salaries training opportunities top of the y medical benefits and a company match for one k program and we recently purchased an additional facility for optical fabrication for three or four miles down the road from our existing facility our customers are principally war fighters and law enforcement agencies and in the past they've possess a significant night time tactical advantage can perform operations at night to limit casualties and off the disadvantages in numbers or unveiled intelligence today we're facing an increasingly well kept opponent at home and abroad and we no longer enjoy this nighttime vanity fully what optical system of technology is working to counteract this we invented and developed the first generation of inline sites that now predominate in the d o d s we provide thermal systems for augmenting goggles to provide multispectral capabilities to the war fighter and as i mentioned before we are installing a new facility for manufacturing optics which are currently manufactured offshore such a source does not exist in the us and this exposes critical technology to the non u s systems and allows our national security interests to be compromised often when this information goes overseas i cite these programs as examples from our business perspective of what innovative small business can do in finding solutions and reducing costs but there are issues which affect these high tech small businesses like us and i appreciate the pride of me with this opportunity to address them even though we are innovative flexible and efficient small companies have trouble with federal acquisition systems generally because they small businesses risk all the system currently allow small businesses to bid on production opportunities the best value criteria encourages procuring agencies to select large businesses over small businesses even when the latter offer significant price and or performance advantages taxes are also a major major impediment to the growth of small businesses high marginal income tax rates directly us corporations like us we generate a federal income tax burden that is about ten times what our shareholders currently withdraw from the company every year we're typical of high tech small businesses in that we require and  reinvest in facilities and equipment and inventory to help hold our current market share allow for new product divel meant to continue our growth only a small portion of these investments can be expense thus we pay income taxes in large part from the same pool that is available for reinvestment to the business cannot currently be deferred until the shareholders might withdraw them in the future as taxable income and that would be most helpful to small businesses to be able to do that in fact in our case we could probably employ twenty more manufacturing personnel about one third more employees if we could for those taxes until they were actually  applied to income withdrawn the fewer taxes we pay the more people we can employ the better benefit packages we can introduce for our employees and the more competitive we are in the world market and we do explored all over the world and compete all over the world we do it very well actually high marginal tax rate can also and our ability to develop technology and encourage entrepreneurs like us to sell our technology is a large and possibly foreign companies and that increase the potential for technology transfer to offshore interest the federal government can strengthen innovative small businesses by ensuring that the federal acquisition regulations protect and encourage small businesses and you can strike the laws by reducing the tax burden on small companies that invest in their own technologies and i'm chair members of the committee on behalf of ami tech partners thank you for the special recognition for the invitation to testify charles county greg served sixteen successful years at the helm of the economic development center which highlights the way that st charles county has grown and prospered particularly through his work at the center part of progress since two thousand the st charles economic development center for loan program has helped finance projects around the state totaling nearly two hundred fifty million dollars creating a retaining five thousand seven hundred seventy four jobs these accountants do not even include the thousands who have attended business training events and grades and involvement in countless special projects such as workforce housing health care and education initiatives and the road tax campaign race and the center was named the  by the u s small business ration as part of national small business week two thousand and nine encounter two thousand and eight more than twenty two point five million dollars to thirty seven businesses throughout i don't hardly remember a time when we're not coming out to st charles and chatting with greg about what's going on in the small business community and really accomplished a lot there and it shows that what happens when you take a town basically was a town and you put this kind of leadership in place and now it's becoming the fastest growing area in the state of missouri and it's a lot more city like in fact you can go from where greg's offices and it's about as far from there to the bridge into st charles from the bridge into the downtown st louis area just tremendous amount of growth and that's because of attention to the needs of small business and really understanding it greg we're delighted to have be up here in washington d c thanks so much for joining us and thank you for your leadership those staff but each one of these business expansion translates into real benefits for real people you know we like certified development companies all around the united states that's the name of the kind of entity we are  finance business is really of all types of auto repair shops to restaurants to day care centers to advanced manufacturing facilities everything literally in between that in our case all of the jobs that are created are in missouri but for a program is national in scope and this committee should feel very proud i think of the impact the groups like to have by enabling success for the real heroes of our economy which are the folks who are sitting on the table the owners and the employees of these growing companies like the rest of the country st charles county has felt the impact as a turbulent international economy our largest industries are home building financial services and automotive assembly all of which are obviously facing significant challenges so if there was ever a time when the when our our flagship program the five a four program the overall business strategy and operations performance of thirty eight individual business units managed by the company's comprehensive real estate portfolio i will add that someone twenty two and one of our great economic thriving businesses within the area and this is an example of how utilizing and through conservation utilizing our god's great gift of our environment land water and our mountains to be able to utilize that resource in the right way to be able to create jobs and connectivity for people in this country so with your back madam chair madam chairwoman ranking member graves and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to with carolina we are the largest outdoor recreation company in the country offering a different adventure programs in ten states in twelve countries we receive over five hundred thousand visitors annually in fact in a paddle enough river miles on federal lands each year for two trips to the moon and back we are also a diverse company we operate five retail stores for restaurants a summer camp and lodging for all price ranges and as representative shuler mentioned twenty two olympians and limpid coaches  in during my tenure and o c we've been recognized as the nation's premier pablum school by the new york times the best place to learn by outside magazine and as one the best outfitters on earth by national geographic adventure magazine our economy and western north carolina continues to suffer from the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs as textile garment and furniture plants continue to close this evolving economic paradigm is particularly acute given the large federal land holdings in our  area most notably the great smoky mountains national park and the nano hill national forest which diminish our tax base to fund public services fortunately outdoor tourism led by and see is becoming the backbone of our region's future a recent study conducted by western carolina university quantify the economic impact of on western north carolina to be forty eight million dollars per year while supporting five hundred seventy nine full time jobs in these tough times instead of hunkering down we feel that a downturn is a terrible thing to waste and that is more important than ever to innovate through a recession to gain long term strategic advantage we are busy reevaluating our business models employing high technology to streamline processes and gain greater efficiencies and developing aggressive strategies to grow revenue through innovation and new product development in two thousand and nine we anticipate growing revenues by nearly twenty percent and a two thousand and ten by as much as forty percent we're placing all of our enterprise technology systems which will make us more efficient we're launching a new e commerce website opening a new riverside restaurant rebranding several retail operations and introducing numerous new programs and destinations to increase our top line most importantly we are creating three hundred new seasonal jobs and up to eighty new full time jobs in addition today i'm eager to announce plans to open an eighteen thousand square foot flagship retail store and an activity center and gatlinburg tennessee the new store will gatlinburg downtown shopping and entertainment district and is located at the entrance to the great smoky mountains national park the most the nation's most visited national park will serve as an outdoor the center will be a launching pad for a wide range of outdoor activities in the smoke including white water rafting kayaking fly fishing hiking and biking it will also be leed certified which is a national certification program for green building and we will be the first retailer in the entire gateway to be leed certified when it opens it will become the largest retail store in the smoke and will create approximately fifty five new jobs in north carolina and tennessee in closing i fell in love with the outdoors at summer camp in western north carolina and i can personally attest the value of being introduced to the outdoors as a child i applaud the federal government's efforts to enhance outdoor recreational opportunities for our country takes over one hundred thousand children from diverse backgrounds on outdoor experiences every year and we are creating a new nonprofit foundation to take even more we are a testament that small businesses from across the country can capitalize on the new development initiatives as you've heard america's outdoor recreation kannan economy is an increasingly strong and vital part of our nation's economy especially in rural areas like western north carolina in these tough times americans both children and adults need more than ever the physical emotional and psychological benefits that outdoor recreation provides in the last thirty seven years whenever there has been economic uncertainty our guest numbers have always increased affirming the importance of outdoor recreation during difficult times i appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today thank you for your attention and i would be pleased to answer any questions you may brown currently vice president oregon ironworks president of a newly created subsidiary of organized works called united streetcar that's the only modern street car manufacturing united states of america this is an innovative company that strives to keep manufacturing jobs here in this country and two thousand five hundred was also appointed to the oregon innovation council by governor ted kulongoski in the same year selected as one of oregon business magazine's top fifty business leaders in our state she's also a founding member spare time vice chair of the oregon wave energy trust a nonprofit that promotes wave energy and creates more energy efficient and sustainable jobs drawbar in this company in my opinion management bought the company in the seventy's and we moved from the city of portland to clackamas county which is where our headquarters are now we also have a facility in vancouver washington and basically in the seventy's we had gone from about four or five employees to forty employees where we at now again just kind of compressing history now we have almost four hundred employees we do over one hundred million dollars annually and revenue we have just recently formed this wholly owned subsidiary united streetcar basically we've had approximately a growth rate of thirteen percent annually since one thousand nine hundred four and we have about three hundred five thousand square feet on almost thirty eight acres of land and we are still a small business and we're very proud of that fact and we're very grateful some of our land purchases were done due to s b a financing and credit given back in the seventy's so we're very grateful for that what we're doing right now with u nited streetcar we realize that to be alive and well in manufacturing what must you have diversity and ovation and incredible workforce you have to have those three criteria and we've been very blessed to have an incredibly skilled workforce people don't recognize not the machinists the welders the fitters that have been trained up in the northwest it was due to the ship building industry in the war we've been able to retain that skilled workforce which enables us to build the projects that we do we started out doing hydro electric work then we started building bridges across the united states then we went into some defense work we started building boats and we've been very successful in some federal appropriations and getting some funding for s operations boats from boats we went into aerospace some space launch complex work done at vandenberg in cape canaveral but we're always looking to the future so diversity has been one of the keys why we've had this nice continued growth rate but diversity means you have to be continually innovating must be looking to the future so what's the next product we hear about manufacturing going down let's talk about where the future is we believe the future is in things like renewable energy so doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if you can build boats and things that survive a very harsh marine environment but hopefully we could build wave energy devices so we have built one of the first wave energy devices which was off the coast of oregon there's several more that we believe are going to be built in the next year or two so that's a new market that we think will be emerging in the united states we think at some point waves could surpass solar as a renewable energy for this country so we want to be at the cutting edge and we want those jobs in the united states being done here as we build this new renewable energy not talking about street cars i am the president of united streetcar a wholly owned subsidiary of oregon iron works and where incredibly excited about this because the story of united streetcar is a story of insourcing job well we have done is taken jobs from the czech republic and brought them to the united states we formed a agreement with skoda it's our czech partners so we have the license to manufacture license to manufacture modern street cars throughout the united states there's over sixty four cities looking at streetcars right now across the united states it's fantastic not only as a model of transport but it's a green job and it's an economic development model for urban centers it's incredible success story in portland so we're very very proud we recently awarded a contract to build a production run of six cars for the city of portland and we currently have finished our prototype car which is under testing right now and hopefully this summer will be given to the city and the public will be riding on the first modern streetcar built in the united states and fifty eight years something that were thank you for something that we're incredibly proud of an incredibly happy but how did it start and started with the upper management of our company knowing how incredibly skilled our workers are that we could do it you know i basically heard that there were no street cars built in the united states except for old and historic trolleys which are wonderful but that's not a modern transportation option so when we heard that i said well my company build it we build boats we build bridges we build lots of different things of course we could build a streetcar and then it's making that work and there was a federal appropriation involved for this prototype street car thanks to our delegation which did a great job and that started us down this path and now we believe this could be another hundred million dollar business unit that could be spun out of this company building green transit projects here in the united states because right now even portland cars were all imported from europe so we were giv that option and that's where we would like to say in terms of issues one we are incredibly supportive of the buy america act and all that everyone has done with that we think that's critical to us manufacturing we appreciate that the one issue we do see coming down the pipeline is related to bonding we talk about the credit issues all streetcars will have to be bonded and while we have a binding capacity of over one hundred million dollars that we combined with the increased decrease in the security companies willingness and ability to give the bonds out as well as our increasing growth we don't ever want to turn work away because we can't get a bond and it would be because we couldn't because we've passed our capacity we have too much work bonded because right now more work needs bonding because of the higher risk cities don't want to take on so we worry a little bit about that would wonder how the federal government could potentially help with backing that up you know providing we just as if i was going to turn work away once we hit our bonding cap which luckily we're not there yet in addition there's issues with incremental funding which we would love to see something for small projects not these huge large projects but things that are you know maybe under thirty million where they're not incrementally finding the corps of engineers so we have to wait each year to see if they'll have enough money to build the whole hydroelectric project which causes delays and much greater cost so again the interest of the taxpayers we think small projects that they can be fully funded from the start will have much greater benefit across the line timing to expire thank you very much  community it was founded in one thousand nine hundred nine when the company has rapidly expanded and serves clients all across the country the company's top product record management software allows agencies to better communicate with the chosen kind of a law enforcement providing software and services because we had analyzed that there weren't that many good software systems but a lot of years developing a product  challenges is consumer confidence and i think it is important for the federal government and and the media to convey the good news and the work that many of the panelists are doing here today and and the success stories that there are segments and sectors of the american economy that are growing there is good news and i think that if that can permeate down to consumers and increase consumer confidence i think we'll all be better off i would agree that the media is just cannibalized what business is doing right now and the negativity that they're driving on continually depresses the people who have to produce new drive to grow the economy and that that would help get more money into the hands of small business owners and allow them to the bottom up not from the top down  since i speak from the aspect of doing business with the government a couple of things are happening and that is in my area we do not bid in the small business area i always have to go up against the big guys unrestricted we are seeing profit margins and bids coming in at what we consider to be crazy prices they're absolutely doing to keep the door open well the big guys can bid that low it's very difficult for us to be competitive because that would put me in the hole so you take that and then you take a look at every year i call it the grovel to the bank and that grovel means that i've got to stand there and justify my profitability or lack thereof of those contracts we do bring in because the banks and i'm i apologize if there's any bankers in the room no offense but they will look for any reason not to have you hold on to that line of credit or heaven forbid you are in the best and worst case scenario i want to big contract worst case scenario lower profits need to expand a lot of credit they don't want to do it so to me right now that's a big challenge thank you jim i'd like to see a chicago for the olympics they're looking to harness the energy created by people walking on floors and it's not so much the floor in the in the energy that they're going to create that's going to  olympics will not have to rely on outside sources of energy they're going to create all their own energy from the technologies that they're using but they're focusing on something that's not going to happen still seven years out and i think that we have this preoccupation the united states that we need to have term i believe our biggest challenge is actually related to a skilled workforce we hear this again and again but particularly for us we're looking for well drillers machinists we have a very aging workforce we're a union shop very blessed to have many of our guys forty fifty years with us it's been an incredible run but they're getting older and they're getting tired and we don't have the folks coming in behind because things like industrial arts have left our high schools  doing some of these jobs of your hands and we actually don't have much trouble finding funnily enough the engineers and the project managers and the professionals but if we can continue to have a skilled workforce which are way better than family wage jobs health care taking care determination a strong work ethic respect for your employees sacrifice innovative ideas willing to be able to change your adapt to whatever situation you have and most of all get the government all the way do no harm to  it out of the way to help you do what you do best which is lead our country one quick question for you here with regard to something that's currently considering legislation that would have an effect on raising energy prices producers consumers transportation firms everybody how would a steep increase in energy prices affect your company and we could go down the line very quickly don't have to have a lengthy explanation but just briefly give us an idea of how these are going to impact you one of the things that we are making strategic investments in is green our homeowners money in our particular case cost our customers more because they're our trip charges or transportation charges from the manufacturer for any time the customer has to pay more for fuel they're going to look at us to say what else can you cut out of r and number two what we did was a twenty percent cut back having our employees one day a week we set up to telecommute the good news is that was great the bad news is i'm now paying over here for the office space i took thinking i had the employees there so the impact is negative as the energy cost goes up and we must work in the least program so energy impacts us in a three sixty in real estate energy costs increasing energy costs actually increases somebody's overall cost of living and what that means is they have less disposable income all across the board whether it's for incidental health care for their mortgage centers urban centers are not prepared to deal with that huge influx of people because a lot of density issues that we're seeing in cities the other thing that happens is people are looking elsewhere we expect to see about ten percent of the baby boomers to leave the hundred fifty million pounds and that by barge or by truck or by rail certainly that's a huge expense however on the other side it is a because for example when the gas prices have risen obviously public transit goes up and the investment in street position and then many times the ones who did come back we had to get personal loans to get them out of financial trouble and those monies were never replaced by i don't typically government jobs based on those type of let me ask you about  a dog i'm talking about twenty thirty forty people have gone out of business they don't exist anymore these are companies that have twenty thirty forty years in our marketplace so i don't know how you turn the faucet back described government contracting well bundling is just that bundling in the government is a little different and i spoke to that a little bit earlier than bundling in the commercial world and i agree with exactly what he says about the lines of credit you know when when you don't want to shoot down like a dog and when you really need it you know they just run from you i tend to disagree and i i would have said this sixteen years ago but right now i feel that know government contracts is one of the safest places to be i do agree that it's quite a bit different than the commercial landscape but you know i have been saying this for years way before the stimulus program but now that there is stimulus stimulus money on the street people want to know how do we get part of it all and my comment was saying though that we are headed toward what i'm calling the perfect storm the perfect storm to me is right now we have a very young inexperienced workforce acquisition workforce not only do but all the agencies if you combine that with a poorly trained and experienced group of contractors to made us the perfect storm you have a lot of folks that want to side of that contract may not really know what they're doing and it opens the door i'm sorry to say for potential corruption but most importantly poorly intended bad consequences that can cost the government money so again i would advise taking a look at that that this committee has been actively looking at contracting practices on holding the government agencies are comparable almost every year we produce a report of how each agency is complying with the twenty three percent goal contracting goal for small businesses also the hubs on where they have been mismanagement and fraud we requested from the government  recognize the gentle lady from pennsylvania mr kemp thank you madam chairwoman as a new member of congress and a former small business owner just five months ago i listen to your stories actually with envy in some ways i miss my small business and i miss being part of that i think you all do what you do because you love you know being a small business owner and when i came here when i was running some ways that were politics is not for the faint of heart i think being a small business owner is not for the faint of heart so i want to thank you for all you do and thank you for your testimony it's a i'm very proud to recognize your monumental achievements today and that this is the forty sixth annual national small business week and i'm pleased that this committee has invited you here over the small businesses to testify here today one of the issues i want to ask the panel to just address as a whole is health care this is a debate that we are just beginning and we need your input i know as the person in our small business who made those tough decisions every year about our health care plan for our employees and you know one employee so sick and all  sudden your premiums go up twenty four percent and how can we continue to sustain this and many small businesses can't and then have had to unfortunately drop coverage for their employees and and none of us i think want to do that is from what i hear from you and what i did as an employee as an employer would treat my employees as my family and so you don't want to do that to your employees but if i could ask your opinion maybe on a couple issues maybe into that individual mandate you know do we need to mandate that everyone have some kind of health insurance coverage what about issues of price transparency of being able to actually look at your service and and compare price everyone across the board and that's not an option it's not and it's not really an issue as everyone is that kind of of the whole package so we pay a huge amount for that but that's part of what we do for the skilled workforce i would say we would echo that of course consumer item that they buy i do not believe it should be provided by employers and i'm a simplistic thinking you'll have to forgive me i don't pay for their car insurance or him insurance should be medical and when my employer walks through the hospital door to the first smaller projects like under twenty million that those would be fully funded versus funded year by year and constantly going back and not one hundred percent sure when that money is going to flow to be very helpful for small businesses across the united states thank you  ok well i am sincerely sincerely grateful for your participation this morning it has been an extraordinary hearing and just great member of congress to be able to listen to the stories of small businesses and i know that you are the one creating the jobs and the key to get this economy back on track is by providing tools and you know nation programs that are focused on providing tools for businesses to be able to grow and expand and so just to defend our marketplace affordable credit we all know that all those large banks are getting help from the government it doesn't trickle down to the small banks that are the ones providing the credit for our businesses in our communities  but we were able to include provisions in the stimulus package for the small business administration to work with the financial institutions so that we could increase the government for those loans reduce the fee and provide