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44–861 PDF 2008

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OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN

ENTREPRENEURS ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY

OF THE WOMEN’S BUSINESS OWNERSHIP ACT

ROUNDTABLE

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

September 9, 2008

Printed for the use of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo/gov/congress/senate 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

MARY LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

JON TESTER, Montana 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

NORMAN COLEMAN, Minnesota 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia

NAOMI BAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

WALLACE HSUEH, Republican Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page

OPENING STATEMENTS

Kerry, The Honorable John F., Chairman, Committee on Small Business 

and Entrepreneurship, and a United States Senator from Massachusetts .... 1

PARTICIPANTS *

Barton, Margaret Mankin, Executive Director, National Women’s Business 

Council, Washington, DC 

Coleman, Faye E., President and Chief Executive Officer, Westover Consultants, Inc., Bethesda, MD 

Costello, Patricia, Director, The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson College, Babson Park, MA 

Dolan, Lisa, President, Securit, Flushing, NY 

Dorfman, Margot, Chief Executive Officer, U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Washington, DC 

Elder, Tara, Director, Women’s Business and Training Center, Beckley, WV 

Hadary, Sharon G., Executive Director, Center for Women’s Business Research, McLean, VA 

Hollister, Kip, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hollister, Inc., Boston, 

MA 

Jacobus, Heidi, Chief Executive Officer, Cybernet Systems Corporation, Ann 

Arbor, MI 

Littlejohn, Virginia, Chief Executive Officer, Quantum Leaps, Inc., Washington, DC 

Merlino, Nell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Count Me In for Women’s 

Independence, New York, NY 

Sullivan, Ann, Government Relations, Women Impacting Public Policy, Washington, DC

* Comments, if any, between pages 6 and 16.

Page

IV

PARTICIPANTS’ PREPARED STATEMENTS

Littlejohn, Virginia 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7

Hadary, Dr. Sharon G. 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13

STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD

Ballard, Saberina A., Favor Network Services, LLC, Fredericksburg, VA ......... 49

Gozdz, Wanda E., W. Gozdz Enterprises, Inc., Fort Pierce, FL ........................... 50

Mahoney, Maria, The Mahoney Group, Inc., Lakeland, FL ................................. 51

Shondel, Valerie, SelectoFlash/WIPP, West Orange, NJ ..................................... 53

Shrier, Cat, Ph.D., P.G., Watercat Consulting, LLC, Washington, DC .............. 55

Turczyn, Charlene, CMW & Associates, Springfield, IL ...................................... 58

Waldron, Gayle, The Management Edge, Largo, FL ............................................ 60

Weeks, Julie R., Womenable, Empire, MI ............................................................. 131

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, Executive Summary ...................................................................... 135

U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Report to Congress, September 2008, 

‘‘Special Report: 2006 Federal Contracting Data Grossly Overstates Spending with Women-Owned Firms’’ .......................................................................... 139

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OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR 

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WOMEN’S BUSINESS 

OWNERSHIP ACT 

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2008

UNITED STATES SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND

ENTREPRENEURSHIP, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 

428–A, Russell Senate Office Building, the Honorable John F. 

Kerry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senator Kerry. 

Majority staff present: Karen Radermacher (professional staff 

member) and Greg Willis (counsel). 

Minority staff present: Linda Le (professional staff member) and 

Erik Necciai (counsel). 

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN F. KERRY, 

CHAIRMAN, SENATE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND 

ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND A UNITED STATES SENATOR 

FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

Chairman KERRY. Well, we will officially open up this roundtable. I appreciate everybody’s patience. I am sorry I got hung up 

on the telephone, and I am sorry to keep everybody waiting. We 

are delighted to welcome so many people here, and I gather we 

have even an overflow room where additional folks are listening. 

I will just bring you all up to speed. These roundtables are a different way of doing business here, but we think a far more effective 

way of doing business, frankly, because it deformalizes the hearing 

process a little bit and increases the ability to have a substantive 

dialog, it doesn’t just become a kind of formal few questions, one 

panel, next panel, but we get to go on and have a longer discussion. 

While I can’t stay for the whole discussion, the staff to my right 

and left, Karen Radermacher and Ms. Le, will manage the discussion as we go forward. 

There is a formal record kept of this so that our colleagues are 

able to follow it and catch up to it, and we have found through the 

years that this has really been one of the most effective ways of 

laying the groundwork for good legislation and really working 

through some of the issues with the community at large. 

A number of you in this particular roundtable have taken part 

in previous ones and we are grateful to you for that and we are 

2

very, very happy. I know that many of you sitting in the audience 

would have preferred to have been here at the table, and I understand that. I apologize that not everybody can be accommodated all 

at the same time. But we will leave the record open for a 2-week 

period of time, and if you hear anything that is at odds with your 

experience or something that you would like to add to the record, 

we really welcome it. It will be particularly helpful to us in building the foundation for us to be able to legislate here effectively as 

we proceed forward. 

This is the second roundtable that we have had this year focused 

specifically on women’s business issues. In March, the committee 

held a roundtable in Framingham, Massachusetts, entitled, 

‘‘Women in Business: Leveling the Playing Field.’’ That is exactly, 

really, what the discussion will continue on here today. 

This Committee has made, I think, significant efforts, and I am 

pleased to have worked with Senator Snowe both when she was 

Chairman and now in my role as Chairman. We have really sort 

of interchanged the process here very easily and the committee as 

a whole has worked very effectively on a bipartisan basis. 

But your comments today are going to be critical to helping us 

as we think how to break down these last barriers that seem to remain. They have been persistent and they are persistent, and I 

think it is good to air that and to underscore the nature of its persistence. I am glad to welcome each of the participants here. I 

thank you for being here. 

Particularly, I am grateful to say hello to Kip Hollister from—

pardon me a little chauvinism—from Boston, Massachusetts, celebrating the 20th anniversary, I gather, of your business, some 80 

employees, and, I gather, $26 million of revenues. So we really congratulate you on that. I know you have had to overcome a lot of 

the hurdles that I have talked about and just the upturns, 

downturns of the economy as it is. So we congratulate you on that. 

I also want to welcome Trish Costello, who took part in our—she 

is from Babson College and she took part in our earlier roundtable 

in Boston. 

So all of you know that 20 years ago, Congress passed H.R. 5050, 

which was the Women’s Business Ownership Act, and it was the 

first comprehensive small business legislation aimed to help 

women business entrepreneurs succeed. The bill was the culmination of a movement that really began in the 1960s to address economic inequalities between men and women and continued with 

changes such as the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act 

of 1974. The women leaders throughout that period of time pushed 

to move the Women’s Business Ownership Act forward, and it has 

been a very important tool in helping provide the tremendous 

growth of women-owned businesses that we have seen over the last 

two decades. 

The Women’s Business Ownership Act created Women’s Business 

Centers and they provide consulting and training to women who 

seek to start or grow a business. I know firsthand of the positive 

impact of that program through the work of the Center for Women 

in Business Enterprise in Boston and in Worcester. Since 1995, the 

three branches of this center have helped over 14,000 entreVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
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preneurs. So it just goes to show there is a demand out there and 

when we meet the demand, we have a very positive impact. 

H.R. 5050 also created the National Women’s Business Council, 

which presents policy advice on women small business issues to 

Congress and to the President. It required the Census Bureau to 

include women business owners in its census survey, and it called 

for all agencies to report on any new contracts with women-owned 

firms, one of the earliest efforts to try to get our arms around the 

problem of whether or not women were really getting their fair 

share of Federal contracting. 

According to the data that the Center for Women’s Business Research will officially release tomorrow, and they have shared it 

with us, between 1977 and 2002, the number of women-owned 

businesses grew by a whopping 824 percent. The new 2008 numbers also show that 7.2 million firms were owned by women. These 

firms employed 7.3 million workers and created $1.1 trillion in revenue. 

But despite these, the success that is clearly articulated in those 

numbers, women-owned businesses still lag behind their male 

counterparts in important areas. Women-owned firms have lower 

revenues and fewer employees than their male-owned counterparts, 

and we are talking about apples and apples here, not apples and 

oranges. Eighty percent of women-owned firms have revenues 

under $50,000. And although 6 percent of men-owned firms have 

revenue of $1 million or more, only 3 percent of all women-owned 

firms do, so it is 2-to-1. Women-owned firms often have fewer employees, as only 16 percent of all firms with employees are owned 

by women. And in Federal procurement, women-owned firms receive less than 3.5 percent of all Federal contracts, and that is 

deeply troubling. 

Understanding what causes these differences and taking steps to 

address them is critical in terms of properly addressing questions 

of the strength of the American economy itself. It is particularly 

important during these tough economic times. As reported in the 

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, and I quote it, ‘‘ignoring the proven potential of 

women entrepreneurial activity means that countries put themselves at a disadvantage and thwart their opportunity to increase 

economic growth.’’

In reviewing the last 20 years, it is disturbing to see that the 

issues that were hindering women entrepreneurs from achieving 

their full potential 20 years ago are still barriers today. Access to 

capital, access to markets, particularly Federal procurement, as we 

have just pointed out, and other issues continue to be the central 

issues of concern in this relationship and they are the central 

issues of concern to this committee as we meet here today. 

This roundtable is going to focus on each of these issues, accessing markets, especially Federal contracting and procurement, accessing capital, and accessing networks and decisionmakers. Twenty years later, the committee continues to be engaged in addressing 

those issues. 

Last year, Senator Snowe and I worked together to pass legislation giving permanent funding to established Women’s Business 

Centers. That language was implemented this year. In addition, we 

4

unanimously passed out of the Committee the Entrepreneurial Development Act and the Small Business Venture Capital Act. The 

Entrepreneurial Development Act reauthorizes the Women’s Business Center program and the National Women’s Business Council. 

In addition, the Small Business Venture Capital Act creates incentives for financing of women-owned firms under the SBA’s program 

for Small Business Investment Companies, the SBIC, as many of 

you, I hope, are familiar with. 

Both of these bills are now part of S. 2920, which is the Small 

Business Reauthorization and Opportunity Act, and we are working to pass it in the Senate. I hope that each of you from whichever 

State you come from will be in touch with your Senators in order 

to urge them to pass that forthwith. 

Senator Snowe, myself, and many others are also working to prevent the Women’s Procurement Rule—some of you may be familiar 

with it—which has been offered by—some of you is an understatement—well, you will be pleased to know we are working hard to 

prevent that procurement rule from being finalized. This has been 

one of my top priorities ever since the Bush administration proposed the rule on December 27 of last year. This rule would allow 

set-asides for women-owned firms in only 4 of a possible 140 industries. If you want to have an interesting background to that question, just pull up the testimony we had with the Administrator of 

the SBA and the Administration when we questioned them as to 

the rationale, both Senator Snowe and myself, and their answers 

on rationale is really very, very disappointing. That is when Steve 

Preston was still there and we had that dialog last year. 

Now, maybe there are those in this Administration who believe 

that women business owners don’t deserve a fair shot at doing 

business with the Federal government, but I think the statistics 

are clear. More needs to be done to provide access to women in the 

Federal marketplace, and we have a Federal goal that women 

should receive at least 5 percent of all Federal contracts. Last year, 

they received only 3.4 percent. In addition, that is without some of 

the Federal contracting areas being available, like TSA, which we 

have now mandated are available. So the pie, in fact, has grown 

significantly larger than that and the percentage would be significantly smaller when measured against the larger pie. 

So I will just close quickly by saying that we have got to do more 

and this proposed rule is really an affront to hard-working women 

business owners who simply need an opportunity to be able to 

prove what they are able to do and we ought to live up to the law. 

It is pretty simple stuff. 

I will continue to do everything I can to see that that rule doesn’t 

see the light of day in its current form and to ensure that women 

have an opportunity to contract with the Federal government by 

putting in place a meaningful procurement program. 

So I look forward to our discussion today. If you want to make 

a comment, the general format is you take this thing and just 

stand it up on its end like that and one of the staff leaders will 

recognize you as we go forward. Or if I am here, I will call on you. 

And we ask you just to keep your comments and answers tight so 

that we can stay engaged and keep moving around, and who 

knows, maybe we will even have the opportunity toward the end 

5

to have a few interventions from folks in the audience if we do this 

in a crisp fashion. 

So either Linda or Karen, or Karen and Linda, in whichever 

forum, will help to manage the discussion, and without further ado, 

why don’t we kick it off. Do you have a preordained—do you want 

someone to go first, or do we just want to lead off on the first topic? 

Well, why don’t we start off, I mean, we have those three sectors, 

access to capital, access to—I think we ought to divide it up, and 

then if we want to look at it generically. Virginia, you were one of 

the people who helped make this thing happen 20 years ago. 

Maybe you would be the ideal person to lead off the discussion and 

give us a sense of where we are compared to where we have traveled from. 

Ms. LITTLEJOHN. I am not going to give you the full history. I am 

just going to give you a couple of anecdotes in the interest of time, 

the first one relating to data and statistics. The SBA’s publication, 

State of Small Business, reported on the state of women’s entrepreneurship in the 1970s and 1980s, but because the Federal Census 

measured only the sole proprietorships, the figures were extremely 

distorted. 

So at a very meeting in this room in 1982 or 1983, one of the—

the Staff Director said something about women-owned businesses 

only had gross annual receipts of $10,000 a year and most of them 

were basement or kitchen table-based businesses with basically 

macrame firms or candle making. We had 40 women business owners sitting in the room and I said, you know, I am sure this isn’t 

true. You are never supposed to do something unless you know 

your numbers. But, I said, do you mind if we ask in the room how 

many of you own C corporations, et cetera. I asked everybody to 

raise their hand if they had more than $1 million in sales per year. 

You could hear the thunderous slamming of jaws onto the table 

with slack-jawed stupefaction as they realized all of the data were 

completely wrong. So that was the background on getting that 

piece in 5050. 

In terms of access to business credit, in the 1970s, there was a 

congressional hearing where a divorced woman business owner who 

didn’t have a husband to cosign her loan provided information 

about the request to have her son cosign her loan. Now, here is the 

interesting part. The son was 17 years old. 

And then in the Federal procurement area, in hearings that were 

held in the late 1970s, there was discussion about accessing Federal markets, which has been a huge issue for years and years, and 

the woman business owner who was testifying was telling about a 

conversation she had with the Federal procurement officer and she 

asked him about how she could break into the Federal market, 

what did she need to do, and the serious response was, sleep with 

the contracting officer. This was what we referred to within the 

community as the Hollywood casting couch, the Federal version of 

things. 

So all of those issues and others were addressed in H.R. 5050 

and we have made huge, huge progress since then, but we still 

have a long way to go. 

Chairman KERRY. If you had to pick, Virginia—and thank you 

for your efforts through the years on this—if you had to pick one 

6

of those sectors or one thing that we could do that would make the 

most difference, what would that be? I mean, if it were access to 

capital or procurement or networking, where do you think the biggest single leap could be made if X, Y, or Z barrier were removed? 

Ms. LITTLEJOHN. Well, I would say the biggest barrier has really 

been in the Federal market. That has been—in 1978, when I still 

lived in San Francisco, we were working on trying to get womenowned businesses into the Federal marketplace. It has been so incremental. We have barely inched ahead. But huge, huge strides 

are in the thinking process with the economic blueprint and with 

some of the initiatives that are going on right now. I think that is 

the biggest structural impediment. 

There are many other issues that need to be dealt with that are 

in the economic blueprint, but we basically decided in 1988 that we 

didn’t think we would be able to get anything passed if we went 

heavily after Federal procurement at that point. We felt that it 

would jeopardize the entire bill. So of the five burning issues we 

had then, we decided we would try to deal with that later in another way and not jeopardize the whole what became the Women’s 

Business Ownership Act. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Littlejohn follows:]

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Chairman KERRY. Does anybody else want to pick up on that 

question I just asked? Yes, Dr. Coleman? Tell everybody who you 

are. 

Ms. COLEMAN. Yes. My name is Faye Coleman. I own a contracting, Federal contracting and management consulting company 

named HIT, health consulting company in Bethesda, Maryland. I 

have been in business since 1984, so I have been around for 20, almost—well, next March it will be 25 years. And I really just want 

to quickly echo what Virginia said about the opportunity for significant improvement and advancement in the figures and the impact 

being in the Federal procurement area. 

As someone—about 80 percent of our business is in the Federal 

sector, and even before I started my business, I had worked as a 

consultant in the Federal arena, and so I thought I knew—because 

this was something I was familiar with, that is the direct——

Chairman KERRY. What does it do? What does your business do? 

Ms. COLEMAN. My business provides technical assistance and 

training and program assistance to agencies in the health arena, 

health promotion, disease prevention, risk reduction, and also the 

infusion of technology to provide solutions to—our clients include 

the National Institutes of Health, the Center for Substance Abuse 

Prevention, and many of the other agencies in the health——

Chairman KERRY. How many employees? 

Ms. COLEMAN. We have got 43 employees and we have revenues of $16 million. One of the things that—I just went to a pre-proposal 

conference yesterday for a large procurement out of the Department of Defense and one of the things that just really reinforced 

this whole issue around access to Federal markets to me was that 

when people talk about the goals that are set by contracting officers and procurement officials for subcontracting, particularly for 

large bundled procurements, multi-million-dollar procurements, 

women’s business, the goals for women-owned business involvement is probably one of the least, the last ones. Small business, of 

course, is number one. 

And the pie is so big on this that it is not a matter of necessarily 

putting it in increments because there is enough for everybody to 

go around, but it just is interesting to me that it is almost an afterthought in many cases that procurement officials and contracting 

officers, when they are talking about percentages and goals for involvement in a subcontracting basis, that women-owned businesses—service disabled veteran-owned businesses, HUBZone businesses, 8(a), women-owned, they are all involved, but the percentage goals are smaller for women-owned businesses. So I do 

think——

Chairman KERRY. What stuff do you do outside the government? 

Ms. COLEMAN. I would say about 15 to 20 percent of our business 

is outside of the Federal government. That includes——

Chairman KERRY. Are you growing outside——

Ms. COLEMAN. Yes. Yes, we are. We definitely are. But I would 

say that the majority of our larger multi-year contracts are on the 

Federal side. 

Chairman KERRY. And in your efforts to secure the Federal contracting, have there been perception issues you have had to get 

over? Have there been just sort of fundamental——

11

Ms. COLEMAN. Well, it is—yes. There have been some perception 

issues, particularly early on when I first started. There was a perception that women were not quite as capable as a male-owned 

company, particularly in some markets, in energy and NASA. We 

do work with Transportation and NASA and some of the more scientific agencies, Commerce. So I frequently got—now, it is hard to 

pinpoint exactly, that that is exactly the case, but you would go to 

procurement meetings and fora and women were definitely underrepresented, and this sort of gets into one of the other issues about 

access to networks and decisionmakers. 

Again, in the Federal procurement area, there is a whole universe of people who are very instrumental in the decisionmaking 

process and just the knowledge sharing process, and if women are 

not as equally represented at those tables, then you don’t have the 

information that you need to be as successful and as savvy in putting together winning proposals and crafting teaming agreements 

and joint ventures and all the things that lead to success. 

Chairman KERRY. Did you find that there was a proactivity on 

behalf of the agencies you were dealing with, or did you have to 

kind of break down the doors and say, hey, we are here. We 

are——

Ms. COLEMAN. Not as much for women. I will say it is getting 

a little bit better. But the proactivity was not as—definitely not as 

much for women-owned businesses as you saw in some of the other 

areas. 

Chairman KERRY. Sharon? 

Ms. HADARY. I am Sharon Hadary, Executive Director of the 

Center for Women’s Business Research. Mr. Chairman, we thank 

you for making our—or previewing our announcement of the Ninth 

Biennial Update on the numbers of women-owned businesses that 

we will be releasing tomorrow. 

I just want to throw a little data in here. Obviously, we are the 

Center for Women’s Business Research and, in fact, we evolved because of the Women’s Business Ownership Act because part of that 

said research is vital to understanding the issues and having actionable knowledge, and we are the premier and probably the only 

nonprofit research institute in the world devoted exclusively to 

studying women business owners. 

There are a couple of statistics I would like to add to this. When 

we look at the businesses that are majority owned by women, they 

represent about 30 percent of all businesses. We also have to look 

at the changing profile of women-owned businesses. Twenty-six 

percent of all women-owned businesses today are women of color, 

and oh, by the way, that is up from 20 percent just a few years 

ago. 

So a lot of the issues we are talking about are exacerbated, we 

found in a 3-year study that we are doing on accelerating the 

growth of businesses owned by women of color, many of these 

issues are exacerbated—made worse, these big words—researchers 

have trouble with big words. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. HADARY. But seriously, many of these issues are, in fact, 

made more difficult when the individual is both a woman and a minority. I just very quickly want to give you a couple of examples 

12

of this disparity, of the disparities we see, because when we look, 

break this down by industry, you can’t just go with the overall—

when you break this down by industry, for example, when we look 

at industries like education, where the majority of the businesses 

in that industry code are women-owned, 56 percent are womenowned and yet they get only 7 percent of the dollars. When we look 

at health care, 58 percent of the businesses in that industry code 

are owned by women and they get only 7 percent. 

And then when you drill down to some of the less traditional 

areas for women-owned businesses, utilities, 14 percent are 

women-owned but they get only 10 percent—I am sorry, only 1 percent of the contract dollars. Transportation, 12 percent of the firms 

and they get only 1 percent. This is not——

Chairman KERRY. Let me stop you there for 1 second. 

Ms. HADARY. Yes. 

Chairman KERRY. Each and every one of those categories that 

you have just listed, I might add, are left out of——

Ms. HADARY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman KERRY. 140——

Ms. HADARY. Yes, sir, and I can go through every industry category, but I figured in the interests of time, you would prefer that 

I just pulled out a few of the most interesting ones. But those—

I am not—in every industry, we see the same kind of gap and disparity, and I want to just add one more thing. 

This is not necessarily about equity. This is about economic development, because in research, what we have seen is that the 

businesses that have Federal contracts are the businesses that 

show continual, regular growth over a period of time. So it is important for economic development for our country as well as for the 

opportunities for women business owners. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hadary follows:]

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Chairman KERRY. Well, that is a very good point, and what I 

would like to do, Linda, is make sure that Senator Snowe and I 

take your data and send a letter to the Acting Administrator of the 

SBA and underscore to them these findings relative to their proposed rulemaking. I think that is really important for us to follow 

up on. 

Margot Dorfman? 

Ms. DORFMAN. Thank you. I greatly appreciate the opportunity 

to be here. My name is Margot Dorfman. I am CEO with the U.S. 

Women’s Chamber of Commerce, and, of course, our number one 

issue is making sure that the Women’s Procurement Program is 

implemented as it was intended, so thank you for your efforts on 

that. 

I would like to add to some of the statistics that we have. While 

total Federal spending grew from $200 billion in 1999 to over $340 

billion in 2006, and that is an increase of $140 billion, spending 

with women-owned firms increased by only $5 billion. So we see 

that where the spending is occurring is a challenge. 

Additionally, we believe that the numbers that are shown right 

now with the 3.5 percent or whatever it is spent with womenowned firms is probably overstated. We are releasing a report, and 

one of the things that we have done is we have identified the top 

50 firms that are in the Federal Procurement Data System and we 

find that over 50 percent of those that are shown as women-owned 

actually have male CEOs. We are looking at about $2 billion of contracting with women-owned firms that is stated that may not be 

actually going to women-owned firms. 

Another issue we see is that nine Federal agencies spent more 

than 50 percent of their total spending with women-owned firms 

with just ten firms each. So while there is money that is being 

spent out there, it is a very small pool of women-owned firms that 

are actually accessing the dollars. 

Chairman KERRY. That is pretty stark. Two of you further document what I think everybody in the audience understands is happening, and the documentation is critical because you have got to 

make your case and be persuasive. But let us assume for the purposes of this discussion now that it is as bad as it can be, and we 

all understand how bad it is. The question is, what is the fastest 

remedy here? How do we turn this around? 

Now, in my judgment, and obviously I put a lot of energy into 

this 4 years ago, believing it, if you have got a President who tells 

his cabinet officers this is going to happen and you check every 

other week on whether it is happening, it happens. It is called executive leadership and we need to make sure that whatever the 

next administration is, we are going to have strong executive leadership. 

But what can we do in terms of the law or the access to capital 

rules or anything that we can control here, in your judgment, to 

most rapidly remedy this, beyond the executive leadership that is 

necessary to demand that those goals be met? Judgments on that? 

Yes, Ann Sullivan? 

Ms. SULLIVAN. Virginia referred to the economic blueprint that 

was released this week, and that is 30 organizations have come together and a lot of individual business owners who are in this audiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
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ence to talk about what they want from the Congress and the next 

administration in terms of action on these issues. 

So with procurement, we have three main points. One is, which 

we have talked about, put into place a meaningful Women’s Procurement Program. As you know, it has been a long time in coming 

and we are very dissatisfied with what is proposed. But that is the 

vehicle. If you can set aside contracts, if you can limit the competition, that will definitely help the agencies meet their goal. 

Two, contracts are too large. We have to unbundle contracts. 

Without that, and it is the trend today that contracts are bigger, 

these small businesses just can’t compete. 

And then, three, we have to strengthen small business subcontracting by enforcing prime contractors’ subcontracting plans. If we 

helped you win the bid, you need to use us when the work comes 

in, and that would, in our opinion, also help the numbers that have 

been cited. It would really help women businesses get contracts. 

Chairman KERRY. Good suggestions. Trish, you had your placard 

up, or you put it back down——

Ms. COSTELLO. Well, I am looking at it, as well, Senator Kerry, 

from the standpoint of with these stronger businesses, with the 

contracts that can go in to enable these women’s businesses to be 

stronger, this has a tremendous impact on our ability to have a robust economy because we know through the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor that you mentioned earlier that the number of women 

that are participating as entrepreneurs, the stronger they are, the 

faster they grow, the more robust our economy is. 

And, in fact, looking across the world at actually countries that 

represent 90 percent of the GDP, that is consistent, that the more 

women that are involved in the economy, from the lower-wealth 

countries to the higher-wealth countries, the more women that are 

involved and the stronger those companies grow, the more robust 

the economy will be. 

So we are not looking just at the opportunity that these individual women have and these individual companies have, but it 

also has a major impact on our ability to be competitive and to 

grow our economy. And as we are looking at how to revive and 

push our economy forward, we need to be looking at how we provide these kinds of services and opportunities both in procurement 

and in other areas for women because it is a major key piece. 

In addition, what we have been doing, and I know you know, 

Senator Kerry, because this is happening in Massachusetts, but 

you can take—we are now taking the Global Entrepreneurship 

Monitor data and not only are we all over the world, but we are 

now moving down to the State, with Massachusetts being the first 

one where we are actually looking now county by county to see the 

growth of women in that State as our first pilot one to see where 

do we have growth around the State, where are the women growing fastest, in what industries are they, and how are they benefiting, so we are being able to determine best practice in a wide 

area across both sales and procurement and different types of data 

points. 

Chairman KERRY. Good. Great. That is helpful. Lisa? 

Ms. DOLAN. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak 

today. My name is Lisa Dolan. I own Securit. We are a private inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
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vestigations and security firm in New York. We provide 60 percent 

of our contracts to the Federal government. 

To Dr. Hadary and Ms. Dorfman’s point on their percentages, the 

Women’s Procurement Program, being in a male-dominated field—

my NAICS code is 561612—it wasn’t even a consideration for the 

SBA and we are certainly in a male-dominated field. I was very 

disappointed. So obviously the Women’s Procurement Program 

didn’t mean anything to me because they didn’t include me. They 

excluded me. So I do believe that you have to look at those numbers because 4 categories out of 140 sectors is certainly not a fair 

assessment of women-owned businesses where we are underrepresented in many other industries. We do a lot of business with the 

government, but we could do a lot more if that carve-out allowed 

us to be included. 

Chairman KERRY. Can you define further the impediment that 

you run into in terms of the doing more now? What is the restraint? 

Ms. DOLAN. Well, there are a number of restraints. One is the 

contracts are very large, so in order to get those contracts, you 

have to tap into capital. We have a line of credit. We tried to increase it, but the bank actually said, well, 60 percent of your contracts are with the government and that doesn’t make us comfortable. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. DOLAN. And I thought that was a very strange statement. 

So here we are, having this opportunity to be awarded these contracts, and yet I had to tap into my personal finances to support 

the payroll because the bank wouldn’t increase my line of credit. 

So there are a number of impediments. Also, being in a male-dominated field in security, I am usually the only woman at the table 

and not taken seriously. In fact, I think I told Karen this story, I 

went to a meeting. I sit on a governing board on a grassroots effort 

for some legislation in the security field and there were 14 men at 

the table and I was the only woman and I came in with my legal 

pad, because I take copious notes wherever I am, and the gentleman sitting next to me said, ‘‘Oh, are you John’s secretary?’’ We 

are in the year 2008. 

Chairman KERRY. Well, he wasn’t. 

Ms. DOLAN. He wasn’t. You are right. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. DOLAN. That is right. So, yes, there are some impediments. 

Chairman KERRY. We are going to go over—yes, Kip? 

Ms. HOLLISTER. It is a pleasure to be here celebrating our 20th, 

as well. You all will be shocked that of the $26 million that Hollister is doing this year, guess how much is dedicated to government? Probably 15 percent. And I will tell you why. I have—one, 

I think we have got to stop the loopholes for the phoniness of it 

is not really females that are running these companies. I have been 

courted by many who want me to come in as the token woman, and 

guess what? It is a very hard thing to resist because my revenues 

will shoot up. But I have integrity as a female owner and I say no. 

But I know it happens in my community. 

19

Second, the relationship—I am in a relationship business. We are 

a service business. We are a staffing company. No, I don’t own Hollister Clothing. I wish I did, and so do my four children. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. HOLLISTER. But in the relationship business, I think we need 

to bring some relationship to the procurement process, and I don’t 

know how to do that. First, the procurement process needs to be 

easier point of entry for someone like me to manage because it is 

easier right now for me to do business in the private sector. And 

so I need ease of entry. Maybe I need mentorship. I agree, I don’t 

know what I don’t know. 

But second, once you get these contracts, you are a number and 

that is not how I run my firm. All my clients know who I am. I 

am the female CEO. I go see them. And it is really hard to work 

into the system. So if that is a value, which I think it should be, 

how do we better create a system that can partner so that someone 

like me can take advantage of the government and use it to grow 

my company, because I am not stopping. I really have the vision 

of growing my company to $100 million. The only reason it has 

taken me this long is because I also value my work-family balance 

with my four children. But I am competing with some male competitors and it is just a very frustrating experience. 

Chairman KERRY. It sounds like it. 

Ms. HOLLISTER. Yes. 

Chairman KERRY. Well, I appreciate the integrity that you bring 

to the effort and hopefully we can make it easier to access more 

of that——

Ms. HOLLISTER. I would love it. 

Chairman KERRY. Do you have a sense, I mean, beyond what I 

said about the executive piece of it, is it bundling that is a problem? 

Ms. HOLLISTER. Yes, that is part of it, because what happens in 

bundling is that they need us to help in the bundled approach. So 

we get invited to the table——

Chairman KERRY. For the beginning, but then they cast you 

aside afterwards. 

Ms. HOLLISTER. Absolutely, but then I look at how much revenue 

has come or what was the price I had to pay, also inclusive in my 

gross margin dollars, and I run a sales organization, so my staff, 

I don’t want to burn out. So yes, it is partly the bundling issue, and 

I think the size of the contracts, which has been communicated. 

You know, we do need the capital to then fuel it, so there are a 

lot, I mean, there are a lot behind Door Number 3, but——

Chairman KERRY. Have you had any interaction with the Business Centers? 

Ms. HOLLISTER. No. 

Chairman KERRY. You haven’t? 

Ms. HOLLISTER. No. Should I? 

Chairman KERRY. Have you used any kind of technical assistance or input from the SBA or——

Ms. HOLLISTER. You know what, that is something that I really 

want to do. Yes. 

Chairman KERRY. Do you have any SBIR or SBIC——

Ms. HOLLISTER. No. 

20

Chairman KERRY. None of that? 

Ms. HOLLISTER. No. 

Chairman KERRY. I guess you wouldn’t on the service side. That 

makes sense. OK. 

Tara Elder from West Virginia here, am I right? 

Ms. ELDER. I am Tara Elder. I am the Women’s Business and 

Training Center Director from Beckley, West Virginia. You asked 

how to fix the problem and I think everything that has been suggested is right. You have to start from the top down, but you also 

have to start from the bottom up, and a lot of that is, like Dr. Coleman said, more women have to be at the table. More women have 

to be trained on how to approach the government for contracting, 

how to do SBIR, how to do STTR. Women’s Business Centers are 

out there every day. That is what we do. We assist women every 

day in their business, but we struggle. We struggle in how to train 

women in government contracting. We struggle in how to present 

SBIR and STTR training because it is so expensive to bring and 

that is something that needs to be addressed, is how to bring that 

training day in, day out, to women so they can compete in government contracting and make a difference to their local economy. 

Chairman KERRY. Do the women that you train come to you or 

do you go to them? 

Ms. ELDER. Both. 

Chairman KERRY. Do you cast a net and try to pull people in? 

Ms. ELDER. Both. 

Chairman KERRY. You do? 

Ms. ELDER. Yes. We are a very rural State in West Virginia. We 

cover—our center covers 11 counties, and from one end to the 

other, it is about 5 hours. So some training we take on one end, 

some to the other, and some events we bring them to the center. 

And right now, we are the only Women’s Business Centers in the 

State of West Virginia, so we field calls from the whole State. 

Chairman KERRY. How do you target who you are approaching 

or sort of the net you are casting? 

Ms. ELDER. A lot of the times, we use SIC codes. We look at the 

industry they are in. But then we do a broad-based press release, 

as well, so that we let people who we may have missed with our 

targeting marketing who pick up the press release and say, oh, 

that is government contracting. I may be interested in that. And 

it may have been our shortsightedness who thought they wouldn’t 

fit into that SIC code or it may not be the right industry for them. 

They may know more than we do sometimes. 

Chairman KERRY. Do you coordinate with the Secretary of State’s 

office in terms of their recordation of all existing businesses? 

Ms. ELDER. Sometimes. It depends. They are hard to get a list 

from, so sometimes we can get a list very rapidly and sometimes 

we can’t. 

Chairman KERRY. It seems to me maybe we ought to think about 

making that sort of an automatic——

Ms. ELDER. You would think. 

Chairman KERRY [continuing]. That when a business is incorporated or filed appropriately, there is some kind of transfer to the 

SBA folks and they know, wow, there is a new young business here 

and then you can actually reach them rather than having them—

21

it seems to me that we don’t talk to each other within these processes very well. 

Ms. ELDER. Unfortunately, State, Federal government doesn’t 

talk very well——

Chairman KERRY. Yes. 

Ms. ELDER [continuing]. And agencies inside the State Government don’t talk very well and neither do Federal agencies a lot of 

times. 

Chairman KERRY. We ought to think about ways to do that. 

What about Chambers of Commerce? Do you have an automatic——

Ms. ELDER. We work very well with our Chambers of Commerce. 

Our local Chambers work very well with us. We partner on everything, so we use their mailing lists and they use ours. 

Chairman KERRY. Margot Dorfman, do you want to come back 

here? I have got to run in about 4 minutes here, folks. I am going 

to turn it over to the staff momentarily. 

Ms. DORFMAN. Thank you. One of the things that we find when 

I talk to the small business officers and directors for the agencies, 

what they have said to me, we would love to get more women in 

the door, but without the program in place, we don’t have any directions on how to actually bring them in because there are all 

sorts of legalities. There is no FAR. There is no regulation and we 

have to have that regulation in place so that we know how to live 

by the law according to procurement. So that is why we are so adamant about getting this law on the books in a way that reflects 

what we see as the 87 percent of all businesses or all industries 

that are underrepresented with women-owned firms, so that we 

can open that up. 

And in addition, what we see is a need for the SBA to have some 

transparency and do what they say they are going to do. It is very 

clear that their mission is to support small business, but just the 

fact that they are impeding the process of implementing this program is one. They have cut their budgets. So when you talk about 

the State level, a lot of the State-level SBAs don’t have the resources anymore to do any outreach because their budgets have 

been cut and cut and cut and they are—the people that have left, 

they have not been replaced. 

And the same thing about when you get access to capital funding. That also has been—levels of funding have been cut for loans 

and the access to those loans. So there are, I think, a number of 

areas that the SBA needs to be held accountable for that we need 

to have them move forward. 

Chairman KERRY. Fair enough. Heidi? 

Ms. JACOBUS. Thank you. I am Heidi Jacobus and I am the 

founder and CEO of Cybernet Systems, which is a high-technology 

business founded in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I have 50 employees 

and——

Chairman KERRY. Fifty? 

Ms. JACOBUS. Fifty, yes, and they comprise a lot of Ph.D.s and 

master’s degrees and very well trained engineers. 

I am interested to note that more than 50 percent of the master’s 

degrees since 1983 in science and technology have been awarded to 

women and yet we still see so very few women taking their eduVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
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cation and bringing it to practice and whether—what the impediments are for them to do that. But they certainly don’t lack for 

technical background to be able to do that. 

I have the advantage of an excellent education. I started college 

at a place that was forced to accept women in 1970 after the Supreme Court ruling, so I think a lot of us know what it is like to 

have been denied access to certain very fine colleges until that 

year. I did my undergraduate there, and then I went on to graduate school in computer science, where I earned my master’s degree in computer science in 1977 and continued toward my Ph.D. 

I never finished the Ph.D. I started my company instead. 

But it is lonely out there, and I don’t think—I think we see a lot 

more women graduating than we see occurring in businesses. 

There is a trend for the number of women graduates going up, and 

yet the data shows the number of women in these technology businesses flat. So it doesn’t make sense. The numbers don’t compute 

to me. 

Chairman KERRY. That is interesting. Well, it is good to see what 

the product of a good football program can do. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. JACOBUS. No comment. 

Chairman KERRY. It doesn’t compute, and it would be really interesting to try to figure out—I can think of a lot of possibilities 

about why it doesn’t, but I don’t want to even hypothesize. It would 

be very interesting to understand where those folks are going and 

what they are doing as a result of that, because you are absolutely 

correct. There is about a 50 percent or even better——

Ms. JACOBUS. Right. 

Chairman KERRY [continuing]. Rate of graduation. We ought to 

try to see if there is any data on that and see if we can figure it 

out. 

Folks, I, unfortunately, I have got an 11 o’clock. I have got to run 

out of here. But I kept promising you Linda and Karen and you 

finally get them. What I would like you to do before you wrap this 

up—and again, I want you to invite, if there are any interventions 

from the audience at large, I would like to invite them, also—see 

if you can prioritize. I mean, see if at the end of this you can say, 

OK, here is one, two, three, four, whatever, that we ought to tackle 

so that we can come out of this with maybe a consensus about 

what the order of priority is as to what we might try to achieve. 

That would be really helpful to us on the committee. 

So hopefully without interrupting the flow, I really thank you all 

very much. It has been very, very interesting, and I know it will 

continue to be, so go ahead. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. All right. Actually, Faye, did you want to—

I think your card is next up. Oh, no, I apologize. 

Ms. MERLINO. Thank you. Thank you, Faye. Nell Merlino from 

Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence. We are a notfor-profit provider of resources for women in business and we won 

a program called Make Mine a Million Dollar Business. One of the 

things that we have seen and continue to see is the desire for 

women to grow their businesses to a million dollars and beyond 

and a real lack of resources to the point that was made in West 

Virginia, about the lack of resources, say, that the SBA has to actuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
23

ally reach out to women. We are finding across the States where 

we are doing our programs the SBA is coming to us and asking us 

to do outreach to women and to get them to come to our events so 

they can meet them at those events. 

So there seems to be a real disconnection or lack of awareness 

on the part of an awful lot of businesswomen about those agencies 

because they are not able at this point to do the kind of outreach 

that I think was—it was a great suggestion about perhaps notifying those agencies as women start businesses, but more importantly, the women who are—and Julie Weeks is in the audience 

who coined a phrase called ‘‘The Missing Middle,’’ which is everybody who is beyond a startup and is trying to figure out how to 

grow their business. How do we put more resources to the missing 

middle who will create more jobs than certainly any other group? 

We have a goal at Make Mine a Million and in our program of 

getting a million women to a million dollars in revenue and that 

alone would create a minimum of four million jobs. So I think the 

focus on growth, but growth for a large mass of women, is important, because then they would be able to take advantage of the procurement situations that are being described. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. I think that is a really important 

point that you bring up, Nell, about the missing middle and also 

about how to help small businesses grow and perhaps it is a good 

way to transition into some of our other topics. We have spent the 

first hour talking about procurement, which is such an important 

topic. 

So I guess one of the questions I would have for you, what are—

you mentioned the missing middle and what you are doing to help 

them. Are there any other either specific needs or things that 

should be done, whether by SBA or anyone else, to help these small 

businesses grow into multi-million businesses, or million-dollar 

businesses? 

Ms. MERLINO. Certainly, a lot of the things that were discussed 

already. The issue of the size of government contracts is formidable 

to a lot of businesses. But it is a combination—I think I can best 

answer it with a very short story about a woman who went from 

$400,000 to over $20 million in 18 months and the intervention 

that we supplied was relatively small but significant. 

One, she had never taken advantage of the fact that she was a 

woman and minority-owned business and wasn’t quite sure how to 

do it. So we were able to direct her to the places. She runs a business called Human Potential which trains people coming back from 

Iraq and Afghanistan how to get back into the workforce, and people coming out of prison and people who have been downsized. So 

given the economic news, her business is kind of valuable and important and she was stuck at $400,000 for 5 years, mainly because 

she didn’t know how to delegate to employees, and she has grown 

from now ten employees to 80 employees. So it was a minimum 

amount of technical assistance and education and awareness about 

the opportunities that existed in government contracts and programs. 

So I think this issue of the networks and how aware we want to 

make people about what those opportunities are—too many women 

are coming to our program and going from way under a million dolVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
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lars to over a million in 12 to 18 months and it suggests a focus 

in this area would move millions of women out of that $50,000 revenue area into larger and larger businesses where I do think there 

are then resources, or some resources—I am sure some folks on the 

panel would argue with me about that—but there seems to be 

greater opportunity. It is getting to the point where you are big 

enough to start thinking about taking advantage of these opportunities that I think needs to be addressed more clearly by the SBA 

and the Business Centers around the country. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Right. Well, I think that is actually an incredible point, even, about the impact that just a little bit of help 

can have, and it does make me think of the impact on the whole 

economy if that were available to everybody. 

Did you have a question, Linda? 

Ms. LE. I first wanted to welcome all of the women here on behalf of Senator Snowe. She was in the House of Representatives in 

1988 when the Women’s Business Ownership Act was passed and 

she voted for it then and has worked very hard since then to support it, so welcome, everyone. I also wanted to thank Karen 

Radermacher because she has worked so hard to put this together. 

My questions are about Make Mine a Million. What is it that the 

women are learning when they come to your program that is propelling them forward? What are the two or four or five things that 

are making such a difference that they are going from below a million dollars to above a million dollars in such a short period of time 

and how can we take that and replicate this model so that we can 

push that out through Women’s Business Centers and elsewhere? 

Ms. MERLINO. It is awareness of opportunity and meeting other 

women who have done it. I think it is incredibly important when 

you have so few women in your community or in your—meeting 

other women who have grown, knowing what the opportunities are, 

both in terms of government programs but also in terms of corporate contracts and things, understanding the opportunities, and 

understanding more about their own finances and how that works. 

Financial literacy in business is critically important and it is 

something that I think once they get into a Business Center, they 

often learn, but there are millions of women who never get into 

those places and I think there needs to be a greater outreach to 

women from those centers so that they are aware of places. 

We also provide community for these women, which I think is 

another issue. If you are shut out of networks and you are going 

to meetings where you are the only woman in the meeting, it is 

helpful to be able to have someone to talk to or to call on who has 

some experience in these areas or just has done the same thing so 

that you know sort of what the rules of the road are. We still are 

not aware enough of those, but I think there are enough of us in 

it with organizations with WPO and all the organizations represented in this room. 

There is enough awareness now, and somehow through the SBA, 

the Business Centers, there has got to be a way to share that information so women aren’t reinventing this every time they start to 

do it, because we are moving women—it is surprising to us how 

quickly they are getting past the million dollar mark in revenue 

25

and it is a combination of these things, and the additional things 

that are being talked about here, these businesses would skyrocket. 

Ms. LE. Thank you. I appreciate that. When you are working 

with these women, are you finding that they are having—you 

talked about resources earlier. Are you finding that they have difficulty also accessing capital besides procurement, which we have 

talked about a great deal? Ms. Dolan talked about how she went 

and she had a contract and the bank said, no, you have too much 

with the government, which it seems like they would say, oh, great, 

you have so much with the government. Let us go. 

Ms. MERLINO. Right. They pay. 

Ms. LE. Right. What have you seen along the lines of access to 

capital, because that is another one of the topics that we are very 

interested in—and please, other women, as well—are the women 

finding that that is one of their major barriers, that they can’t grow 

because they are not being able to get the next level of capital 

funding or they are not being able to get the startup level of capital 

funding? Where is it that your participants are having the most 

difficulty? 

Ms. LE. They all have stories about challenges with access to 

capital, every single one of them. A lot of them, if it is taking out 

lines of equity on their houses to finance their businesses, and 

sometimes in their husband’s name to do that. We have women 

who have not been able to start a business without financing from 

Count Me In because we do have a small loan fund available, who 

go on to—who get $5,000 from us and go on to be million-plus businesses. So that challenge remains. 

We have the wonderful situation of being able to offer the women 

who win Make Mine a Million access to financing through American Express Open, which has been a huge help to a lot of these 

women. But I think it is helping other agencies and organizations 

that provide financing to understand that these are great businesses and with financing will grow and, you know, produce great 

jobs and products and services and everything. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Thank you. Ms. Dorfman, did you want to 

comment on this, as well? 

Ms. DORFMAN. Yes. When you talk about access to capital, we see 

a few things happening. An example is I had a member go to Bank 

of America asking for a business loan only to be told that we are 

not giving business loans anymore, but we will take a look at your 

personal—what you have for personal wealth and let us see if we 

can loan against that. That is one issue. 

I have another member who went to get a loan and she was told 

by that lender that she needed her husband to sign off on it. She 

has a six-figure salary. He had a mid-five-figure salary. They didn’t 

believe her. They said, well, you couldn’t possibly be making more 

than your husband. You have to have him sign or we are not going 

to give you the loan. 

So this is not—back when you started this whole thing, it was 

the same thing. We haven’t really moved forward. Additionally, 

when you are taking a look at the SBA loans, what we see is that 

the banks are now using it as a tease. Oh, yes, we have SBA loans, 

and now what happens is we get you in the door and we give you 

a line of credit instead, so you are putting your business on credit 

26

cards rather than using the proper financing vehicle to have that 

happen. 

Additionally, what we see now with the economy is definitely impacting because women have had to go and use their homes as equity, and now that the housing, the bottom has dropped out, they 

don’t have as much funding available to them to grow their loans, 

and traditionally, women are given smaller loans anyway. They 

don’t have access to the larger loans to be able to grow, so those 

are some of the challenges that we see. 

Ms. LE. Let me just ask a follow-up question on the SBA thing. 

So they are bringing women in saying, come get this SBA loan, and 

then they are ending up pushing them into a credit card. What is 

it that they are—I mean, obviously it is a bait-and-switch, but 

what is it that they are telling these women and that they are coming back and telling you to justify taking them from a fixed loan, 

or a——

Ms. DORFMAN. Well, we are just starting to investigate what that 

all means. But we have seen that that has become an issue. They 

also cherry pick. They will take the cream of the crop out there, 

which doesn’t leave—you probably have the same type of—it is a 

good, solid business plan and in order to do the business plan you 

need good funding, and in the old days, you could go get a business 

loan and now women have to rely on the SBA loans. But if we can’t 

access them because we are being pointed in a different direction—

additionally, some of the SBA loans out there have exorbitant fees 

attached to it, so a smart businesswoman probably wouldn’t accept 

a small business loan with that on top of it. So those are some of 

the issues. 

Ms. LE. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Actually, I would like to turn it over to hear 

some thoughts from other people. I think, Faye, you have had your 

card up for a long time. 

Ms. COLEMAN. Yes. I just wanted to—thank you, Karen. I just 

wanted to sort of address the intersection of the procurement and 

access to capital issue that has come up, because when you said, 

Ms. Dolan said that her bank had refused to provide additional financing to support her growth, I think one of the things that is a 

problem that might possibly be a way to address this is a lot of 

banks and financial institutions don’t understand Federal contracting and the underpinnings of how receivables financing works, 

for example. 

So many women business owners, women-owned businesses are 

in the service arena as opposed to manufacturing or something 

where there are hard fixed assets. So in the service industry, in my 

business and Ms. Hollister’s business, your assets are in your head 

or with your people and not necessarily in a factory somewhere. 

The whole notion of understanding how the process of receivables 

financing in the Federal government sector works is something 

that I think a lot of banks, particularly the community banks who 

in many cases are the first point of entry for women-owned businesses who are starting or who have reached a plateau and they 

are trying to get from that $500,000 to the million or to the ten 

million or whatever, they are the point of entry as opposed to the 

large, the mega-national conglomerate banks. 

27

And so if there was a way that an entity—I don’t know whether 

it would be the Women’s Business Centers or some entity, SBA, 

some entity that could naturally bring together the financial sector, 

banks and financial institutions that have capital available, because we have the statistics to show that this is a growing industry, that there is money to be made, and particularly women, and 

the facts, the statistics verify that. 

I think it is a lack of knowledge and understanding of how the 

process works, and I can speak from my own personal situation. 

When I first started out, I tell people I was turned down by every 

bank. I went to all the large banks and they said no. I went to the 

small banks and they said no. And I finally got a small funding, 

which I, of course, had to guarantee, from a community bank, but 

that got me started to a point where within about a 9-month period, I had actually outgrown that bank’s capacity to finance me. 

And they said, we just don’t have the infrastructure. We don’t have 

the staff. We don’t have the understanding. So I went to larger and 

larger banks. 

But I do think that there is a need for more intervention with 

these financial institutions to train them in what type of—what the 

mechanism, how the procurement financing works and what the 

opportunity for making money for them and matching them, what 

they need to expect, what the regulations are, all of that. A lot of 

the banks just are not set up to do that, and so that is why they 

would say to somebody who—this is a wonderful opportunity for 

them to grow along with this growing company. Instead of saying 

no, no, no, it is too risky, oh yes, and compete for her business. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Right. That makes a lot of sense and it does 

seem like more education is needed. 

Trish, I saw you nodding and——

Ms. COSTELLO. Well, I just want to jump right in here with Faye. 

There are a couple of things that I think very specifically the SBA 

could do, and to follow on with this and then to expand to a few 

others. You know, the idea of having banks compete for women’s 

business is a very important one, and actually the SBA does have 

data on which banks are making loans to women. If we could access that data and have a little bit of funding to actually do a 

project, we could do something that I think everybody in Congress 

could be excited about, which is really stimulate competition for 

women’s business by showing who is actually banking women right 

now and even doing a review of the terms, because it is not just 

who is banking women but there are some banks that are actually 

really taking advantage of women by putting much higher rates 

and really onerous terms. 

So who is banking women, and then let us put that out in the 

public, and I know as a woman myself, I would make sure, even 

though I am not into business right now, to make sure that that 

is where I was putting my business, and let them go out and start 

advertising and competing on terms for our business. 

I know from talking with the SBA that that data could be made 

available in 6 or 8 months if we had the kind of money to put those 

reports out. We can even do a demonstration project, take two or 

three States or a region and actually look at it. It is a little complicated with the roll-ups, but it still could be done, and I think in 

28

a very short period of time that could actually cause some significant changes for us that we could actually see and measure. 

I think the other thing in that area—there are a couple of other 

areas there, in addition, and a couple that I do want to just back 

up a bit on the education programs. The SBA, the Women’s Business Development Centers have been very successful, but they are 

always kind of just gripping to the edge, not knowing if they are 

going to get more money again. And we have seen some fabulous 

Women’s Business Development Centers go under or are at the risk 

of going under right now because the money is not—you can’t plan 

on the money. You can’t leverage it for other grants. 

And so I think if the SBA would really look at making a longterm commitment, understanding that this is still a seed project, 

you know. There is not the kind of money that is out there yet for 

them to be able to really take care of themselves and really be selfsufficient. But if you let them die, you are going to drastically impact the ability for women’s businesses to progress in this way. 

In addition, there are other programs like Nell’s and others all 

around that are really hitting that middle ground, and the SBA 

could put out some competitive grants, some very lucrative competitive grants to take those programs like Nell’s and others and 

make sure that they are able to expand and handle more women 

and document what they are doing that is really working, because 

these people are on the forefront of work that has not been done 

anywhere else in the world, and it is an ability for us to again stay 

very competitive and take advantage of this and make sure that we 

don’t have a lot of women that are demanding assistance or don’t 

even know it is available and can’t get it. 

And then, finally, I think there are some other programs out 

there. When we are looking at the Federal government, I do want 

to acknowledge the National Science Foundation in their quest to 

get more women and minorities into the SBIC and STTR, or SBIR 

and STTR programs. They have a special committee, and I think 

SBA should look at this as a model, where they have put together 

a special committee and they have made recent—they know every 

organization that deals with women electrical engineers and every 

woman and minority science association and organization in the 

country and they are aggressively going after them. So there are 

pockets that are doing really well out there and I think those are 

the ones we need to actually hold on to and make sure that we can 

take those and take advantage of it. 

There are a lot of other areas I have in the venture capital and 

angel, but I will pass for those right now. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. And we do want to talk about those, too, so 

we will get back to that. Lots of great points, everything from having banks compete for women-owned business owners, I mean, that 

is a great idea, the need for data from SBA, also figuring out what 

is working with that transition through the middle ground. 

I do want to give some other people a chance to respond, too. 

Margaret, did you want to——

Ms. BARTON. Yes, thank you. I am Margaret Barton and I am 

Executive Director of the National Women’s Business Council and 

I am so very pleased today to see so many current Council members among us as well as former Council members. This is an imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
29

portant organization that was born 20 years ago along with the 

SBA Office of Women’s Business Ownership and we are pleased to 

be the only independent policy voice for women entrepreneurs. 

And what I would like to go back to is the networks, the importance of networks. We are not a membership organization. We represent all women entrepreneurs nationally, so we have to rely on 

networks, and we have just had a series of five town hall meetings 

throughout the United States with another one planned in the San 

Francisco area for November. We could not do this without the networks, the networks of organizations that are represented on the 

Council like WIPP and WBENC and NAWBO and WPO. 

But it was amazing to us in our findings, which you can find on 

our Web site, as to how many women owners, business owners, did 

not even know about their local Women’s Business Centers. I think 

SBA has been very delinquent in advertising and outreach. Outreach doesn’t—the centers don’t work unless there is outreach. The 

organizations understand the outreach to the State and local levels. 

And so we have really made an effort to reach out to connect, 

make some of the connections in our small way without very much 

budget and we will continue to do so because we believe without 

the networking, it will not work. This whole movement will fall 

apart. So we are committed to that. 

Also, I would like to make a comment about—back to procurement a bit. While the Council all agrees on the 5 percent goal, they 

don’t all agree on how to meet that goal. But one of the issues that 

we have that I think Tara Elder referred to is the bottom-up, and 

maybe one of the recommendations we can make is to link the contracting officers with their goals via their annual performance reviews. So that gives them some accountability, real accountability 

that they can understand, to help fulfill those goals. 

[Light applause.] 

Mr. NECCIAI. Ms. Barton, following on that note just for a moment—Eric Necciai from Senator Snowe’s staff, her Procurement 

Council—actually, for Ms. Coleman, I am curious. I am reading 

from the Federal Register of the December 27, 2007 procurement 

rule. I am curious, in your consulting with the Federal government, 

or anyone consulting with the Federal government, do you work in 

any of the industries of coating, engraving, heating, and treatment? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NECCIAI. Is anyone else on the—does anyone else in the audience work in that? I didn’t think so. Does household furniture installation, kitchen cabinet making? Motor vehicle dealership? National security and international affairs? Well, nobody would be 

doing that because that is actually for the public administration. 

No private entity can do that, either. So the four industries actually go down to three industries. 

Ms. BARTON. Right. 

Mr. NECCIAI. Nationwide, we are looking at 1,238 firms, at least 

at my last count, that could potentially go into these three industries. As of this morning, almost over 66,000 CCR registrants, 

women-owned firms. At the time of the report, it was 55. So we are 

looking at less than 2 percent that this rule would apply to after, 

of course, having to go through the discrimination issue, which is—

30

there are two fundamentally flawed issues with the procurement 

rule. 

One of my questions is, what as far as relation to this procurement rule would you recommend, and anyone else on the panel recommend, to fix this rule? What Senator Snowe has done, and with 

the support of the Chairman, through various comment letters, and 

thank you for letters of support on various issues, but is to try and 

fix those two fundamentally flawed things. Is there anything else 

in addition to obviously implementing, which I know is something 

that Margot Dorfman is trying to get with her agencies, to try and 

get a workable—along with WIPP—to try and get a workable program that can help increase that 3.4 percent to 5 percent? What 

other suggestions or tools do you think, specific to this program, do 

you think that need to be done in order to fix the rule? 

Ms. COLEMAN. Are you directing the question at me or——

Mr. NECCIAI. It is directed to kind of somewhere else. 

Ms. COLEMAN. I think the first thing they can do is look at the 

data and see what the data show in terms of where the success stories are, where the growth is, where the potential and the opportunities are, and pay attention to that. I mean, that is obviously—

that is a very easy thing that they clearly did not pay attention to, 

because to come up with these four areas that are so disconnected 

with what the data—and there is a multitude of data that you can 

tap into. So that would be the absolute first thing that I would recommend. 

But I also think that, again, being much more proactive, putting 

some action behind the rhetoric and being proactive about in the 

way that they encourage women, either through the funding and 

the sustaining of the Women’s Business Centers and other mechanisms for reaching out and providing technical assistance to 

women-owned businesses to grow their businesses and to sustain 

their businesses. There are, through SBA and Department of Commerce, there are many other entities whose existence is presumably to provide this type of technical assistance and they are not 

being adequately advertised, as we have heard, used. The resources 

are not there. 

So when you have rhetoric that says we believe in growing the 

percentage of contracting by women-owned businesses and we are 

committed to meeting these goals, and I have not met a procurement official or a contracting officer who has not said that, but the 

actions are just not there. 

Mr. NECCIAI. There are a few other—I know Karen is going to 

ask a few questions. There are a few other questions I wanted to 

ask, as well. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. Quickly, I know that you need to leave 

early and so I just wanted to give you a chance to talk, and I know 

you have been waiting, so——

Ms. SULLIVAN. I feel like a student with my hand up. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. SULLIVAN. But on procurement, thank you for that question, 

because Congress, we think, needs to strengthen the underlying 

law, and Senator Snowe has a bill. I know that Senator Kerry is 

working on one. So the first action we would recommend is that 

you go back and you fix some of the original language so that we 

31

would never end up with an unacceptable, insulting rule like the 

SBA published on December 27. 

Second, we need—going forward, we need to make sure that the 

bill that is going to be passed will allow it to be—will allow for the 

program to be legally sound. So we need more findings. That is 

why I think everybody is asking the participants in this audience 

to send their own stories and their own letters for the record. That 

would be a huge help. 

Third, you can’t have past discrimination finding by an agency. 

I mean, that makes the program immediately unworkable. That 

has to be fixed. 

And then the other thing that everybody here has alluded to is 

that there are no cabinet makers in this audience. We have to expand the category and the group of people that are going to be covered by it and we need a much better interpretation by the Small 

Business Administration about which industries are under-represented. 

So I thank you for your efforts to fix things by putting together 

legislation which will greatly help us and hopefully we are never 

going to be in this situation again where an agency can put forth 

such an unacceptable bill. 

Can I just go back to access to capital, since I need to leave? 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Sure. Absolutely. 

Ms. SULLIVAN. OK. I just—the one point that everybody seemed 

to talk about was that while there is technical assistance by the 

SBA and some of their programs for those women who are beginning, who need to know how to apply for their initial bank loan, 

there is not the proper technical assistance for small businesses 

who need large infusions of capital to grow. I think a lot of people 

in this audience are in that situation. So we would ask for an expansion—we meaning WIPP and all the organizations that belong 

to it would ask for an expansion of that program, those programs, 

to be able to now help women who are in a growth mode and who 

are trying to secure large government contracts. 

We also—can I say one more? We also believe that Congress 

should restore the loan guarantees and subsidized rates so that the 

SBA loans are more acceptable. I mean, the reason there are high 

fees is because it has to be a self-sustaining program. So we would 

urge the Congress to go back to that. 

Ms. LE. Let me ask you about that, Ann, because one of the other 

issues I do is SBA lending, which is almost as fun as women’s but 

not as much. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. LE. My question is, what size of loan are you talking about? 

In, for example, 7(a), we can go up to two or three million. What 

size are you looking for? 

Ms. SULLIVAN. Well, I think there was a study done by a lot of 

angel investors and it seems to be that the big gap is between 

$500,000 and $7 million, and that is, by the way, why we think 

angel investors, who are an important source of capital in that inbetween stage, should be given additional tax incentives so that 

they want to invest in our business. 

I mean, WIPP surveyed their—did a 2008 survey. Sixty-six percent of the respondents used bank financing backed by home equity 

32

loans. Forty-nine percent used credit card financing. Thirty-six percent got their funding from family and friends, and I know everybody is not wealthy. So this means that they are relying on their 

own sources, begging and borrowing to be able to grow their companies versus more traditional ways that perhaps male-owned companies have access to. 

Ms. LE. And you talked about technical assistance or training. I 

think that that may be a little different than what we normally 

think about when we do technical assistance with loans. So what 

type of training do you specifically see for those larger loans or that 

gap in the middle for the women trying to grow that are already 

established? 

Ms. SULLIVAN. Well, I think there is a whole set—at least I hear 

from the women business owners—they are trying to assess whether they ought to take, you know, what does it take to get equity 

in that amount, at those levels. What should you do in terms of 

taking on a partner? What should you do in terms of equity positions? What do you need to look out for venture funding? You 

know, we hear horror stories about people just taking over the company. So there are all kinds of questions that need to be addressed 

that nobody can answer that is just an expert in how to fill out a 

startup bank loan. 

Mr. NECCIAI. And thank you so much for your support in this 

issue and your members’ support and the Chamber’s support on 

particularly the women’s procurement issue. 

I wanted to just briefly touch on a few comments. Ms. Hollister, 

you had mentioned mentoring, how that may be a useful tool for 

women-owned businesses. There was a bill November 7 of 2007 by 

Chairman Kerry, S. 2300, with the support of the Ranking Member, actually creates a mentor-protege program for women-owned 

firms. So we feel that that tool could be very useful for womenowned firms. 

Another thing we talk about is bundling. Bundling was an issue 

that had been brought up on various different participants. That 

bill also attacks bundling on various different levels by increasing 

the eyes on the contracts. The procurement community in the Federal government is decreasing and it has been decreasing since 

1980, and obviously with more procurements happening, we are 

now at hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars being procured 

and it just keeps to grow. Those fewer eyes and those more dollars 

just ultimately results in more bundling. So one of the things that 

the bill does is also create a PCR program, Procurement Center 

Representative program, and there are more PCRs that are looking 

at this. So there is legislation currently by the Chairman and by 

the Ranking Member to address some of these vital issues. 

Ms. Jacobus and Ms. Barton, you had mentioned also the SBIR. 

SBIR is another piece of legislation that this Committee recently 

passed, just recently last month or the month before, to address 

more reporting after following the recommendations of the National 

Academy of Sciences to report how many women-owned firms are 

out there, to get that data. So you need the data in order to address the problem, so that is another crucial aspect that exists out 

there. 

33

Ms. Sullivan had to leave, but I just wanted to again thank her 

and thank all you members for addressing this vital issue. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Actually, I do see Sharon, Heidi, and Lisa all 

have your placards up. I do want to bring the conversation a little 

bit to something that Ann mentioned, which was venture capital 

and how that is one of the areas where more funding needs to go 

to women-owned companies. I wanted to open up that a little bit, 

and I know that, Trish, you have done a tremendous amount of 

work here. I don’t know if you guys want to comment on that or 

something else, but I did want to start that conversation. 

Ms. COSTELLO. Well, it is, I think, a critical piece of it, both angel 

investing and the venture capital investing in women’s businesses. 

Unfortunately, what we have seen over the last 10 years is that 

those percentages are staying relatively constant at below 10 percent, closer to 6 percent, sometimes under 6 percent down to 3 or 

4 percent, and actually even over the last 20 years, you are not seeing much of a change, although those were like 2 and 3 percent 

early on. So the numbers just have not been, from the standpoint 

of investment capital, really been moving into women-owned businesses. 

Now, there are a couple of things that I think we could do that—

that we kind of touched on that could be very helpful, and one that 

Ms. Sullivan just mentioned before she left is that there are a number of States that have started to use tax credits very effectively 

in getting more angel investing into their local companies, and that 

could be a very effective tool, looking at a number of different tax 

opportunities to invest in women and even in women and minorities. There are ways that you can also put some protection around 

that. You could have programs that certify or put some guidelines 

around those kinds of investments that would make them very effective. 

I also know that the U.K. has a program where they will match 

investments of certified angels into startup companies. They will 

actually match them dollar-for-dollar. So there are some very interesting programs that are going on outside of the U.S. that is causing more money, equity investments to go into startup companies. 

And frankly, I mean, those are areas where you really get a 

wealth machine going. If the E.U. and other countries get way 

ahead of us in that area, that is something that we are going to 

be playing catch-up on. So I think that both with angels, there are 

a number of different ways that the SBA and the Congress could 

drill down on to make it more effective. 

Women have to know more about being able to access that 

money, and again, that is another area where there should be education going on. I know at Babson, we actually incubate our women 

alums that we believe have the potential to get equity investing 

and we put a whole team around them. And sometimes it will take 

12 to 18 months or longer, 2 years, before we really have them 

ready to go out and target the equity market. And it will sometimes take that. But the results of that can be so amazing. 

And once they figure this out, this isn’t just a one-time. These 

are women that can become serial entrepreneurs, that can do it 

over and over and over, creating large businesses that are going to 

create jobs and wealth for our country. 

34

And then on the venture capital side, I would just toss out to you 

that a number of years back when we had the SSBICs, we were 

really ahead of what the market could actually provide, and you 

know, that happens with startups all the time. The technology is 

ahead of where the environment is. At that point, we did not have, 

I believe, enough women in venture capital that had a lot of expertise and experience. So we were putting money out and our market 

wasn’t really at the place where it could take advantage of it. 

That is not the case today. The timing is perfect to actually get 

some significant SBICs targeted to women out there and we could 

see some very successful investments made and some great success 

stories. 

There is another thing that I would like to toss out, what I call 

a women’s kicker. There are—in all the mainline venture capital 

firms now, and there aren’t that many, but in all the mainline venture capital firms, you now have at least, in the average, at least 

one or sometimes two senior partners in those firms. There is an 

opportunity for some kind of, I think, very innovative idea where 

you say, everyone that has two women partners in mature firms, 

we will give you $20 million to focus on women over the next 5 

years. It is like an SBIC-type of thing, but different. These are mature firms that would not ever go for SBIC money. 

And you could potentially have the impact of having investments 

made by these top venture capital firms with all the resources they 

bring to bear toward women. It has never been done before and I 

think this is an area where you have the most experience putting 

the money in women’s business that can draw so much more and 

leverage so much more. 

So I might actually think it is something like that, some kind of 

very experimental programs using some of the best talent out there 

now. And as I say, we have some tremendous women VCs that are 

doing fabulous work now. We didn’t have them 10 years ago. We 

probably didn’t even have them 5 years ago, but they are there 

now. 

Mr. WILLIS. Hello. My name is Greg Willis. I am Counsel on the 

Senate Small Business Committee and I wanted to follow up on the 

VC question. One of the things that we are trying to do in S. 2920 

is increase leverage to women- and minority-owned firms so that 

they can invest in—well, the leverage would go to the VC and then 

the VC would access that if they did a percentage of their business 

with women or minority businesses. 

One of the questions that we have is what has been just on the 

ground level experience for women business owners in attempting 

to access venture capital? I mean, what is the experience when 

they have gone into the room? Who have they been meeting with? 

What have they been saying? And anybody at the table, if you have 

had experience of trying to access venture capital, whether you 

have been successful or unsuccessful, could you kind of give us 

some insight into what you are dealing with on the ground level 

in trying to access venture capital. If nobody at the table, is there 

anyone in the crowd who could speak to that? Yes? Could you come 

forward? 

Ms. JOHNSON. I am Jeanne Johnson. I am from Kansas City. I 

own an information technology consulting firm that is located in St. 

35

Louis, Missouri. We are a high technical firm, as well, so it is nice 

to have technical people in the room. We are in the missing middle, 

and the banking missing middle looks at us, too. Venture capitalists are hesitant to invest in women businesses because the climate 

is not conducive for growth. 

So my recommendation from the individual out here in the middle with a multi-million-dollar company, many, many employees, is 

that the Federal government needs to lead the way and show the 

example. Bundles exist. Audit the bundle at the end and make sure 

that, if it is verifiable, that the subs who were quoted at the beginning are then used and paid. They can’t escape it. 

Also, if there are women-owned businesses that are receiving 

prime contracts that are not women-run or women-owned, they are 

defrauding the Federal government. If I defraud the Federal government, I go to jail. I recommend punitive measure. 

And that is all I have. Venture capitalists are hesitant because 

it is tough for us and we have to fight. We love to fight. We are 

very effective. But we just need to make sure that it is a level playing field. Thanks. 

Ms. COSTELLO. We have to understand, too, that 90 percent of 

men that apply for venture capital get turned down, too. I mean, 

I just want to put that out there. We have to be realistic about——

Mr. WILLIS. I think I see a hand in the back. Ms. Payne, Joann? 

Ms. PAYNE. Joann Payne, and I am not going to speak to venture 

capitalists even though this person right here beside me is an expert at it, Heidi. But I do want to go to the prime contracting procurement and subcontracting since this wonderful lady right here 

suggested it. 

My suggestion, let us just throw away the rules and regulations 

and start over again. We have an opportunity to put together a 

program for women that could be a hallmark and actually a program for all of SBA now and all of procurement programs. I think 

our system is broke. There are not a lot of prime contracts for 

women in general in government and subcontracting, there is a lot 

of opportunity. 

I represent women highway contractors. We do about, what, $2.2 

billion a year in subcontracts. Our subcontracting program on the 

other levels is broken. There is so much available. Break up the 

bundling. Give the women an opportunity. You set goals. You make 

sure that the prime contractors give those contracts to those individuals that they are contracting out to. 

Women do beautiful work, do great work. They can do the job 

and they can earn the money. It is as simple as that. I mean, this 

is not rocket scientists, I am telling you. If you look at the DBE 

program and how it works, it is the best program, procurement 

program, we have, and it is very successful. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thanks so much, Joann. 

Actually, I think we had someone over here who also wanted to 

make a quick comment, if you can squeeze in. 

Ms. WANG. I am Rose Wang, Binary Group. My company, we 

have over 100 employees in Federal government contracting. But 

my previous life, I am a serial entrepreneur. My previous business, 

I tried to raise venture capital and I was a spectacular failure in 

that venture. Mainly, I think, my experience is I did not have the 

36

wherewithal to get to the network, to know the right people, to get 

to the right—present to the right people. 

There is a national—one of my best friends actually just had to 

dissolve one of her businesses that was backed by venture capital. 

Only 1 percent of entrepreneurs in this country are backed by venture capitalists that are women, only 1 percent. We don’t have a 

big network. 

My current business, we are in the missing middle now, so I put 

small business—I joined a venture fund as a result. I want to see 

more women entrepreneurs have a chance, because nobody is—not 

enough people, I should say—it is tough enough to have an idea 

that is presentable, but it is even tougher to relate to people in the 

room when you don’t have access to that network, to the knowledge, to the body of knowledge. That is one of the key things. And 

no mentors. So that is my experience. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Yes. Thank you so much for adding to that. 

I actually do have one more person and I actually do want to talk 

a little bit more about the networks, which we said we would talk 

about today, and we are starting to run short on time. But if people 

could keep their comments brief so we can get in as many comments as possible, that would be great. Go ahead. 

Ms. PORGES. Hi. My name is Shelly Porges. I am a serial entrepreneur, as well, as well as being the Vice Chair of the Board, 

Nell’s board, Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence. I 

wanted to talk to you about two of the five business experiences 

that I have had, two of them with VCs and I will call it alternative 

investors. 

The first was a venture that actually I didn’t found. It was 

founded by another woman, however, and I came on board as the 

Chief Marketing Officer. We found that there were a lot of closed 

doors to getting the financing for what was a great business idea, 

what became at the time, considered to be one of the ten fastestgrowing online ventures, a company called Third Age Media. 

What was our successful strategy in the end was that we brought 

on board private investors who were friends of the founder and of 

mine who were themselves connected to the investment community 

and it was sort of the functional equivalent of having to get your 

husband to sign for your loan. It was essentially getting these men 

on board who had credibility. 

Having said that, I was Chief Marketing Officer for Bank of 

America during a big turnaround where we went from number 23 

to number 1 in consumer lending in the country. So we had people 

on board ourselves who had tremendous business experience and 

credibility, but it wasn’t until we got those guys on board that we 

could access the VCs. So that is part one. 

My second experience, however, was partnering up with a very 

well known investment banker for the next venture and we had no 

problem there, and he was a man. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thank you very much for adding that. 

Actually, that is one of the comments I have heard actually from 

a number of women, is hiring men in order to get access to networks or to get jobs. So I do want to quickly ask about networks, 

and before we close, I will give Sharon, Heidi, and Lisa a chance 

to respond. 

37

One of the things that we hear over and over again, and Rose 

mentioned it here, having access to the decisionmakers and to the 

appropriate networks, and if someone would like to respond to that, 

or we can start with Heidi or Sharon if you would like to. 

Ms. JACOBUS. I would like to speak about the access to equity, 

which is an older topic now, but every business needs access to equity. You do the work first and then your customer pays you, and 

so you have to have money to do the work. 

I went 20 years ago, like Dr. Coleman did, to a bank with a 

signed Federal contract and asked my banker for a line of credit 

and the banker said, no, it doesn’t count for anything, and I was 

mystified but I drilled down to figure out why. It turns out that 

Federal contracts don’t fall under the Uniform Commercial Code, 

and so therefore the bankers comply with a formula that says, here 

is my mix of banking assets and here is my risks and here are the 

loans I have out. But Federal contracts count for zero in the bank 

examiners’ metrics. 

So it is really not a mystery. It is confusing why it would be, but 

the reason is the Federal government does not allow their contracts 

to be assigned. So if I am owed money by a department store and 

something happens, my debtor can go to—my loaner can go to the 

department store and get money. But if something happens to me 

and my contract is with the Federal government, they can’t touch 

it. So they have no back-up plan. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Right. That makes a lot of sense. 

Actually, Sharon and Heidi, and we will allow you guys to speak, 

as well. Again, if people can keep it brief, just because we do want 

to end on time or close to it. 

Ms. DOLAN. I just have one quick point. I want to say that on 

the mentor-protege program under the 8(a) in Title 13, as codified 

in the CFR, the mentor can invest up to 49 percent in the protege’s 

firm, and that would be a great vehicle. The only problem is it is 

such an arduous task to get your mentor-protege approved by the 

SBA that by the time you get it approved, that mentor is down the 

road looking for somebody else. This happened to me personally. 

This was a very large company. But the task that it took to get 

them to the table to look at things—they couldn’t even interpret 

the CFR properly. They don’t know how to interpret that program 

if it is just a little bit off. 

So I think that is a great vehicle that could be used for a lot of 

these small businesses. I am an 8(a) firm. I am going to be graduating next year. But we tried to get into that to get an infusion 

and we just had so many impediments and were met with so many 

barriers that I just threw my hands up and said, forget it. It is 

never going to work. 

Mr. NECCIAI. I would like to get your card after this. We could 

discuss your story and see how we can address that issue. 

Ms. DOLAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. NECCIAI. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Actually, Sharon, do you want to comment, 

and then we will let both of you guys comment, as well. 

Ms. HADARY. Yes, and I love data, so I am going to throw out—

instead of telling a story, I am going to throw out a couple of disparate pieces of information. I want to focus on the other side of 

38

the equation. We are talking about how are we making venture 

capital, how are we making higher-level loans available to women. 

But what we also see in the data is that women in many cases do 

not understand. About 60 percent of women business owners, when 

we ask about venture capital, don’t understand why they want equity, what equity investment would do for them, how they would 

go after it, and we hear again and again, I don’t want to lose control of my business. 

So I think, looking at the Women’s Business Centers and other 

groups, there is a whole—there are two sides to this story. One side 

is we have got to make it available, but the other side is we need 

to increase that financial sophistication, and I think this is Trish’s 

term, of women business owners. 

We also see, and I find this very interesting, we have hard data 

that shows that the only consistent statistically significant factor 

that will predict whether a women business owner will get capital 

and grow her business is not the size of the business, length of 

time in business, or the industry. It is her goal for growth. And I 

think what Nell has done that is so spectacular is she has made 

women declare and therefore internalize a goal for growth, and as 

a result, they are moving ahead. 

So I think those are very important things. We are still seeing 

that there are so many women who say—I think it is 60–some percent of the women who say they would prefer not to carry debt. So 

this whole issue of financial sophistication and training, I think is 

very important on the women’s side. 

In terms of networks, I think that is also an important issue because if you are not visible in these networks, you don’t get access 

to capital, you don’t get access to markets, and what we see looking 

at women overall, and particularly we saw it in our study of 

women of color, is that women tend to stay within their community 

and their networking. They tend to belong to fewer and smaller 

networks, and that much of their network is really for personal 

support as opposed to for business issues and getting business. So 

I think that is a whole area—this whole area of not only access to 

networks, but when the women come into these networks, to make 

sure that they have the introductions and the credibility. 

Again, we heard, particularly in our study on women of color, 

they said, yes, I go to the meetings and nobody notices that I am 

there. So I think there is another area, that we need to get them 

to expand their networking, but we need to find ways when they 

get into the networks that they have the introductions and they 

have the credibility. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thanks so much, Sharon. A lot of very 

important points. 

If you guys would like to comment——

Ms. MAPLES. I can be very brief. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Actually, can you give us your name? 

Ms. MAPLES. Oh, I am sorry. I am Karen Maples. My company 

is MYUTIQ LLC. We are based in Arlington, Virginia. There is actually one very good success model for helping women understand 

how to take more advantage of VC funding. Springboard has done 

programs throughout the year, and I have attended events and 

seen firsthand the incredible amount of confidence they are able to 

39

build in women and how they present their business and their 

business idea to a VC group so that they can actually start to participate more in VC funding. So as a model for something specific 

that we could do more of, I think that is a very important thing 

for us to look toward. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great point. Thank you. 

Ms. SHRIER. A tremendous amount of Federal contracts are going 

to deal with important issues in energy and the environment. Ms. 

Jacobus pointed out earlier how many women have the degrees in 

those fields, have worked through firms in those fields, and often 

are not getting to the top levels in those fields. Next Friday, the 

Committee on Women and Science and Engineering and Medicine 

at the National Academy of Sciences is having a whole workshop 

on women in transition in their careers and looking at getting into 

tenure. For a lot of women who are in practice in using these professions, that transition becomes starting their own business so 

that they can fully practice and fully engage in their professions. 

It is absolutely critical that we make sure that we are supporting 

those women who are starting businesses in those areas. Often, we 

are coming in as subcontractors to these larger bundled projects because these big engineering firms are getting the contracts. I used 

to do business development for a large firm, a large engineering 

firm, and we would look for the women-owned business. Oh, yes, 

that is going to be good for the team. That is going to help the proposal. But it is absolutely critical to make sure that they are fully 

engaged in the actual use on the projects. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Can you tell us your name and which 

organization you are with? Thanks. 

Ms. SHRIER. I am sorry. My name is Cat Shrier. I recently started a firm here on Capitol Hill called Watercat Consulting, doing 

water resources planning and policy work throughout the country. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thanks so much. 

Ms. GAYDOS. My name is Valerie Gaydos. I am an angel investor. 

I manage the Private Investors Forum in Philadelphia and also I 

am involved in the Pennsylvania Angel Network, which seeks to 

fund these early stage companies. 

You know, I was downstairs in the other room when I missed 

some of the questions that were asked before, but the number one 

thing is that we do see a lot of women businesses. The problem is 

they are not scalable. The problem with that is that scalable technologies typically tend to be in technology. I think to solve the 

problem is encourage more women to get into technology fields to 

create products and devices that are scalable. So, I mean, there is 

an education component to that early on. 

Second, I see that women get into mostly service businesses because that is what they do, and it is because there is a lack of bank 

loans and the early stage financing which allows them to keep 

their equity. So I think looking at banking regulations and loosening up banking regulations for women-owned businesses would 

be very, very helpful. 

I think also when you mentioned about giving tax credits, someone mentioned giving tax credits to establish venture capital firms, 

as an angel investor and an early stage investor, I don’t think that 

is the issue. I think what the tax credits should go to are the 

40

women businesses that are developing the business, because the 

problem isn’t on the end that these guys don’t necessarily look at 

these businesses, and I know maybe some of you said that you had 

problems getting access. 

The thing is that when a business plan comes across my desk 

and I see that it is not scalable, honestly—I mean, I do a pretty 

good effort, make a pretty good effort to call some of these women 

back and explain to them and say, hey, look, this is a good business 

but—it may be a lifestyle business, but I am not going to invest 

in it. And so I try to do my best to try to educate them, what does 

scalable mean? What are the elements that a venture person is 

going to invest in that business? 

That is where I believe that we need more education and more 

help, but I think it starts with banking and it starts with getting 

more women into technical positions. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thank you for that. 

Ms. BAKER. Hi. I am Tina Baker. I am the CEO of Cadence 

Group. I am also the Georgia Chair for WIPP. I just want to say 

that—I want to reiterate what someone said earlier about leveling 

the playing field and enforcing the opportunities at the government 

level, because in working with successful businesswomen in Atlanta, there are women that are in the private sector and doing 

well and are not moving into the government sector because there 

is an obvious lack of opportunity. So there is a large cost for bidding a Federal procurement. You can easily spend $50,000 just to 

bid. And if there is not a recognizable opportunity for women, then 

why not take that money and use it in the private sector instead. 

And the other thing I want to point out, in doing work with the 

Federal government ourselves since 1992 and doing that through 

small business set-asides, that there is a need to protect those setasides, I believe, as you move forward. So, for instance, for us in 

particular, we had a contract from 1992 through 2005. The last 

contract with the same agency was a $12 million contract. That 

contract was bundled in an A–76 study which was then awarded 

to the government instead of outsourced, and then a large percentage of what was a successful small business set-aside for 13 years 

was given without a requirement for a bid process as a subcomponent of the A–76 award to the government to big business. So there 

are problems with bundling that go beyond just initial offerings. 

Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thank you very much. 

Yes, one more. Go ahead. 

Ms. BIERMAN. I am Christine Bierman with Colt Safety out of St. 

Louis, Missouri, and Las Vegas, Nevada. I just want to go on 

record saying I testified—I came to Washington and testified for 

H.R. 5050 20 years ago and I am very disappointed that we need 

to continue to have this conversation today. We, I feel, haven’t gone 

very far, specifically in women business owners contracting with 

the Federal government. That is my core. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. Thank you very much. 

I do have two more things that—one more question and I promised Senator Kerry we would also prioritize right at the end. Oh, 

and Linda has one question. We have talked a lot about the missing middle and some of the other issues. The one thing we haven’t 

41

talked as much about, and I at least want to get a little bit of feedback, is the microenterprises and if there anything specific to that 

that anyone wants to bring to our attention or that we should look 

at more. I did want to hit on that at least briefly. 

Actually—oh, did you want to comment? Go ahead. You did? OK. 

Ms. ELDER. Probably 90 percent of the businesses we see are 

microenterprises and it goes back to access to capital and I want 

to touch back on that. I have to. SBA’s top lenders last year as far 

as number of loans were Innovative Bank and Superior Financing. 

Those were Community Express Loans. Those are great. It is a 

great program. It does put money out into the economy. It does 

fund small businesses. However, those are awarded at prime-plus–

3.25 or 4.75 percent. That is huge, huge percentage-wise as far as 

small businesses go. 

Now, that needs to change. Something needs to be done with 

that so it is not that high of an interest rate for small businesses 

just starting out. 

We know that many, many women’s businesses start with a 

small influx of cash. Fifteen-thousand to fifty-thousand get hundreds of businesses started every day. In addition, there is no collateral requirement with those loans, so it makes it very attractive. 

For women to go in and get a loan for collateral is almost as hard 

as to go in and get a loan for a small business. 

I had two women who were very successful. They went to get a 

business. It took them 2 years because they couldn’t get a bank to 

give them a business loan. They had collateral. They had credit. 

They had everything they needed. They were asked for their husbands’ signatures. It still happens today. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Wow. 

Ms. ELDER. Yes, every day. However, the networks are essential. 

If they know us, if they know the Women’s Business Center, if they 

know a bank, if they know a Chamber, if they know who they can 

come and talk to, they can find the other resources. 

Going back to the networks, it is imperative that those networks 

exist. We had a conversation in here earlier. Women are great at 

networking. However, we have our own little network, our own little circle that we cultivate and we create and we strengthen and 

we almost guard because we worked so hard to create it. That is 

our thought, too, because we don’t share that circle very well. We 

don’t take the time out of our busy schedule to say, wait a minute. 

Let us share this circle. 

And I think we have to get better at that, and I don’t know how 

you can help us with that, but I think somehow we have to get better at the Chamber sharing the circle with the Women’s Business 

Centers and the Women’s Business Centers sharing that circle with 

the research and the businesses sharing that circle with us so that 

all of the startup businesses, all those in the middle businesses, 

and all those million-dollar businesses have a place to come together so that those networking decisionmakers are available. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. That makes a lot of sense and I feel 

it touches on what Sharon and Rose and others have said. 

I will give Faye and Trish and Margot a chance to respond and 

then I do want to just quickly at the end talk about what kind of 

42

the priorities are and what they should be in order if you guys 

want to think about it. Go ahead. 

Ms. COLEMAN. Real, real quick. I just wanted to comment on a 

comment that Heidi had made about her experience with getting 

bank financing for your contracts. My experience, and I do understand about the UCC, but I do think that sometimes banks use 

that as an excuse, because I can actually say my experience has 

been that, particularly earlier on, when I needed to get larger and 

larger financing for larger contracts, the bank actually said the 

only way we will finance your contracts is if you assign them, and 

I did assign them. Now, later on, it was not a requirement. 

So I know from personal experience that if they are so inclined, 

they will find a way to allow those contracts to be assigned and 

they did that because that was—that bolstered their comfort level 

because we were—again, the whole issue of not having collateral 

and all of that. But I have heard that situation before. But I know 

that there are ways to get around it. Despite the UCC requirement, 

there are ways to get around that if they are so inclined. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. That makes sense. Thank you. 

Trish, and then Margot, very quickly. 

Ms. COSTELLO. Just a quick thing. I do have copies of the new 

Women’s GEM report and it is true, it doesn’t matter where you 

live. If you live in Latin America or Africa or here, the number one 

issue is robust professional networks. If you are going to grow your 

company, it is just absolutely completely clear in the information 

that is coming out. 

And then the other thing is, I wonder if—I am starting to think 

that all of us that have been in business for many years should 

really take a step back and look at if the business that we are in 

today really is what is the vehicle that we should be using as entrepreneurs going forward, because the world has changed dramatically and that issue of, you know, can I grow it, a lot of it has to 

do with the type of business you are in and it was a chicken and 

the egg. Even a few years back, we had to get into businesses that 

didn’t take money because we couldn’t get money. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Right. 

Ms. COSTELLO. Now we are in businesses where we can’t get 

more money. And I would make a provocative comment and say 

probably 30 percent of us should shut down the original businesses 

we were in and look to our future in another vehicle, or a portfolio, 

and that would be very hard for women, for we as women to do. 

We have personal connections. But I think that this is something—

what we should start thinking about, that whole idea of the business as a vehicle and what we should be driving today, not our father’s Oldsmobile. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Right. Thanks, Trish. 

Margot? 

Ms. DORFMAN. Back on access to capital, the microlending should 

be put back into the SBA lending platform. That is key. The other 

thing is that we see is when we talk to banks about—and this is 

Wells Fargo did this—oh, isn’t it wonderful we are lending X-percentage to women. I think it was they lent $10 million to womenowned firms and isn’t this wonderful, and we said to them, well, 

what is the greater—how much did you lend to the full amount? 

43

Give us some specifics on these numbers. And they came back and 

said, well, we can’t really do that because legally, we can’t give out 

the race or the gender of the lendees. 

The issue we see is now that is covering their tracks so that they 

can be a little loosey-goosey and not tell us the truth and I think 

we need to open that up so that there is transparency and put that 

into play where they should be responsible. If they are going to say 

they provide lending to this number of women-owned firms or a generic thing, we want to know across the board all the details on 

that. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. Thanks so much. 

Linda had one quick question. We will keep it brief. We do need 

to prioritize and then we will be done. 

Ms. LE. Actually, I think that this question ties into all of what 

we are talking about. The Women’s Business Ownership Act was 

passed 20 years ago. The whole purpose of the Act was to try to 

drive women entrepreneurship and development. We know that 

Women’s Business Centers can’t be the solution to all things, but 

I am concerned about the level of outreach that they have made, 

that they haven’t ever helped Ms. Hollister and that they may not 

have reached other of the many women businesses that are out 

there. And so the question is, how do we bring these women into 

either organizations like Count Me In or into Women’s Business 

Centers? 

I think that, yes, there is a resource constraint, but also what 

can the SBA do to do better outreach, to bring in these women to 

make sure that they understand that these resources are available 

so that we can help these women starting off not just grow their 

businesses, but even choose the type of business that they should 

be in so maybe it is more scalable, that type of thing. How do we, 

you know, propel the success of Women’s Business Centers so that 

they are not just reaching this group of women, but this group of 

women? 

Ms. COSTELLO. Why don’t you start. 

Ms. DORFMAN. I would be glad to. When we take a look at overall 

the SBA, the funding that has been cut from the budget, we see 

two tiers. We see here at the national level where the policy is driven and the budget is driven and the goals are set, and then when 

you get into the regions, you see that because the budget has been 

cut, there just aren’t the resources that they should have to do the 

programs, whether it be lending, the SBIR, SBIC, the outreach to 

the community. I know in the communities the SBA folks are just 

as frustrated because they want to do a good job. So I would say 

that the key thing is to make sure that the budget is grown and 

the resources are truly made available so that they can do the work 

that they need to do. 

Ms. LE. Thank you, and Karen and I have worked on that multiple years, hoping we are going to have better success. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. And actually, I do just want to make that 

into a bigger—it ties right into what I wanted the last question to 

be and what Senator Kerry mentioned earlier. We have heard so 

many great ideas about what we can do and I do just want to hear 

from people what you all think are the top three or the top five, 

or even just the top issue that you think either needs to be adVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:50 Dec 23, 2008 Jkt 045038 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44861.TXT CELINA PsN: BACKUP
44

dressed, or if you have a specific idea about how to do that, we 

would definitely like to hear that. I don’t know if, Trish, you want 

to start, but then Kip and Virginia. 

Ms. COSTELLO. I was on the last one. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. 

Ms. COSTELLO. Yes. I was on the last question. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Kip, do you want to start? 

Ms. HOLLISTER. Well, I think it is clear that this procurement 

process has to be at the top of the list. I think all of us have talked 

about it. I think the audience is compelled to speak about it. And 

unfortunately, I don’t have the—I have the what, but I don’t have 

the how, and I think that is feeling frustrating to me sitting here. 

But if we could make it easier and point of entry easier and tie it 

with what we are talking about as the networking and the education behind it so that there is a collaborative effort to engage and 

then measure those results, I think that would be phenomenal. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. Good point. 

Ms. LE. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Virginia, do you want to——

Ms. LITTLEJOHN. Rather than mentioning a specific policy issue, 

I think it is sort of the point of view of what we focus on. When 

we were doing H.R. 5050, we were much more at a startup or much 

earlier stage. I think if we look at the missing middle piece and 

growth and how we move beyond that with different components 

that relate to the capital piece, the VC and the angel piece, the procurement piece, which honestly I have spent 25 years of my life 

often on addressing that issue, I think if we look at it rather than 

the incremental components but as what we do to spur growth, by 

looking at missing middle, where all of the gaps are that will really 

be able to advance the ball. 

And I wanted to mention to everyone that Quantum Leaps, my 

organization, and the National Women’s Business Council are collaborating on developing a road map to 2020. The women’s business owner groups will all be plugging in on pieces of that. But I 

think if we look at it in a strategic way rather than just this piece, 

this piece, this piece, but in terms of what has been lacking for a 

long time, I do think the Federal procurement is one of the biggest 

lacks. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. 

Actually, do you quickly want to add in? 

Ms. ANDERSON. Yes. Thank you for letting my voice be heard. I 

serve as the National Public Policy Chair for the Association of 

Women’s Business Centers. My name is Petrea Anderson. I am also 

the Executive Director of the Canisius College Women’s Business 

Center. And I have to say, I think collaboration without duplication 

is critical moving forward. We do a lot of collaboration in the local 

market in Buffalo, New York, with the Small Business Development Centers and SCORE. We focus on existing versus startup 

businesses, and I have to say, we are an economic development 

program, not a social service program, and there is confusion in the 

marketplace. If we work together, we can really make a big difference in women’s business. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Thanks so much. 

45

Sharon and Margot? 

Ms. HADARY. I want to echo what Virginia said, that we need a 

strategic approach to this. Partly, it is realizing how women business owners and their businesses have changed. I think we need 

to be very sensitive to the fact that increasingly, it is a diverse population made up of women who are African American, Asian, 

Latina, and many other races. 

And unfortunately, I don’t think we can say, let us focus only on 

the Federal procurement or only on access to capital or only on networks because my experience over 20 years is that these are so inextricably integrated. You can’t do the Federal procurement and 

the performance if you don’t have the access to capital. You can’t 

get the access to markets or the access to capital if you are not part 

of the networks. 

So while we may want to say, especially because of the legislative component, that Federal procurement may be the leading edge, 

we have to make sure that the fundamentals are underneath that 

to ensure that once you get the contract, you can afford to perform 

on it and you can be part of the networks that get you not only 

that access, but also the relationships to allow you to perform. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. 

Margot? 

Ms. DORFMAN. Great. Thank you. First of all, just as an aside, 

the networks also should include the Procurement Technical Assistance Centers, because they specifically work on the Federal contracting systems and provide that type of service. 

As you already know, our first priority is getting the law implemented as it was originally intended by Congress 8 years ago, and 

with that taking a look at the SBA and holding them accountable 

for not just the implementation of the program, but making sure 

that the companies that are in there are truly women-owned, that 

the contracts are being put aside for women to be able to move forward. 

And then our next big thing is the access to capital piece. Our 

members say that without—once I get the contract, then I need the 

capital so I can turn over the contract and deliver. 

And the third piece that they say, which has not been mentioned 

but is very key to our members, is then we need access to affordable health care and other benefits that the big boys provide to 

their employees so that they can be competitive, getting the class 

of employees to deliver on the contracts. So those are our three priorities. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. Great. Thank you. 

Actually, is yours up or no? 

Ms. COSTELLO. Yes, it is up——

Ms. RADERMACHER. But actually, just quickly, I will allow you, 

Trish, and then also you to speak, as well, and then everything 

else, we will ask you to submit for the record. We definitely do 

want to hear it. We just don’t have the time. 

Ms. COSTELLO. I would say that one area that we have not talked 

about but that we see, because in education, we are seeing the people 30 and below that are moving up. SBA and the Women’s Business Centers, because there is never going to be enough money. 

Two-hundred-and-fifty thousand, you are supposed to deal with all 

46

of this in a regional area. It can’t happen, will never happen, unless we start seeing huge amounts of resources. 

I think we should really—the SBA needs to start looking at what 

they can do within the virtual world and have specialty areas, because, you know, I look at the Kansas Women’s Business Center, 

that I have been on their board for many years. They can’t be an 

expert in five different—you know, from new venture creation to 

micro to procurement. So maybe we could have specialty centers 

that are set up and you can draw on them in virtual world, over 

the Internet, because that is where everyone else is going educationally. Everyone is moving that way and the Federal government 

isn’t keeping up with that. But it will be much more cost effective. 

So I think if we put energy into look at that and into some specialization, understanding there are still face-to-face networks that 

our SBDCs should do, but in finding resources, and then go to the 

other end of this and really look at access to capital so that we can 

keep pulling women into the highest level and they are going to 

keep reaching back and pulling the next group of women in. 

Women are good at that. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK. Great. 

Ms. COSTELLO. Those would be my two areas. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Thank you, Trish. 

Ms. HERWICK. Hi. My name is Rebecca Herwick and I am President and CEO of Global Products in St. Louis, Missouri, a manufacturing company, and my biggest issue is finding the procurement opportunities. I am able to afford a full-time staff person who 

does nothing but update my three different codes, classifications, 

that each of the different divisions of the government has. I don’t 

think that a lot of women know what their SIC code is, what their 

NAICS code is, what their FSC code is, the matrix of trying to resolve those together and then update each of the different divisions 

of the government who has a different maze that you go through 

to try to find your product category. That in itself is a huge problem, just finding the opportunities to bid. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Great. Thank you. 

Ms. HERWICK. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. All right. One last person and then we are 

really done. 

Ms. ADAMS. OK. They say you always leave the best for the last, 

so I will take that. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. ADAMS. OK. I am Juliette Adams and I am a real estate investor. I have heard a lot being said about access to capital and my 

question or challenge is how can women be helped to form banks 

or credit unions, form financial institutions so to assist with the 

issue of credit and financing, because I see that we are working 

from like a male structure and women have a different way how 

they do things. Maybe that is why we have been talking for 20 

years and we will continue to talk for another 20 years. There is 

a touch and a twist as women that we have to come to grips with 

to interject in the systems. 

So especially from the financial institution, I am confident there 

are women who have the expertise, who have the desire. How can 

47

Congress or how can you assist in really getting that going, and 

then the banks will start to get jealous, you know, the competition. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Right. 

Ms. ADAMS. And that can snowball something. Thank you. 

Ms. RADERMACHER. OK, great. Thank you so much. 

Thank you all for participating. The record is open for 2 weeks 

and we would love to have more submitted. Thanks so much. 

Ms. HADARY. I also would just like to take one last comment and 

say thank you on behalf of all of us, all women business owners, 

all 10.1 million women-owned businesses in this country, to Karen 

Radermacher for her passion and her leadership in making this 

happen. Thank you, Karen. 

[Applause.] 

Ms. RADERMACHER. Well, I just have to say, it is Senator Kerry. 

It is his vision that we seek to carry out, so thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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