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| [House Hearing, 116 Congress] | |
| [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] | |
| SUPPORTING AMERICA'S STARTUPS: REVIEW OF SBA ENTREPRENEURIAL | |
| DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| HEARING | |
| before the | |
| COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS | |
| UNITED STATES | |
| HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES | |
| ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS | |
| FIRST SESSION | |
| __________ | |
| HEARING HELD | |
| FEBRUARY 27, 2019 | |
| __________ | |
| [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] | |
| Small Business Committee Document Number 116-006 | |
| Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov | |
| _________ | |
| U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE | |
| 35-071 WASHINGTON : 2019 | |
| HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS | |
| NYDIA VELAZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman | |
| ABBY FINKENAUER, Iowa | |
| ANDY KIM, New Jersey | |
| SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas | |
| JARED GOLDEN, Maine | |
| JASON CROW, Colorado | |
| JUDY CHU, California | |
| MARC VEASEY, Texas | |
| DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania | |
| BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois | |
| ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York | |
| ANTONIO DELGADO, New York | |
| CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania | |
| VACANT | |
| STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Ranking Member | |
| AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American Samoa, Vice Ranking Member | |
| TRENT KELLY, Mississippi | |
| TROY BALDERSON, Ohio | |
| KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma | |
| JIM HAGEDORN, Minnesota | |
| PETE STAUBER, Minnesota | |
| TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee | |
| ROSS SPANO, Florida | |
| JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania | |
| Adam Minehardt, Majority Staff Director | |
| Melissa Jung, Majority Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel | |
| Kevin Fitzpatrick, Staff Director | |
| C O N T E N T S | |
| OPENING STATEMENTS | |
| Page | |
| Hon. Nydia Velazquez............................................. 1 | |
| Hon. Steve Chabot................................................ 2 | |
| WITNESSES | |
| Mr. Charles Rowe, President & CEO, America's Small Business | |
| Development Centers, Arlington, VA............................. 4 | |
| Ms. Corinne Hodges, CEO, Association of Women's Business Centers, | |
| Washington, DC................................................. 6 | |
| Mr. W. Kenneth Yancey, Jr., CEO, SCORE Association, Herndon, VA.. 8 | |
| Ms. Cherylynn Sagester, Veterans Business Outreach Center Program | |
| Director, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA................. 9 | |
| APPENDIX | |
| Prepared Statements: | |
| Hon. Jim Hagedorn............................................ 28 | |
| Mr. Charles Rowe, President & CEO, America's Small Business | |
| Development Centers, Arlington, VA......................... 29 | |
| Ms. Corinne Hodges, CEO, Association of Women's Business | |
| Centers, Washington, DC.................................... 37 | |
| Mr. W. Kenneth Yancey, Jr., CEO, SCORE Association, Herndon, | |
| VA......................................................... 46 | |
| Ms. Cherylynn Sagester, Veterans Business Outreach Center | |
| Program Director, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA..... 62 | |
| Questions and Answers for the Record: | |
| Question from Hon. Brad Schneider to Ms. Corinne Hodges and | |
| Answer from Ms. Corinne Hodges............................. 65 | |
| Question from Hon. Brad Schneider to Ms. Cherylynn Sagester | |
| and Answer from Ms. Cherylynn Sagester..................... 67 | |
| Additional Material for the Record: | |
| None. | |
| SUPPORTING AMERICA'S STARTUPS: REVIEW OF SBA ENTREPRENEURIAL | |
| DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS | |
| ---------- | |
| WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2019 | |
| House of Representatives, | |
| Committee on Small Business, | |
| Washington, DC. | |
| The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:08 a.m., in Room | |
| 2360, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Nydia Velazquez | |
| [chairwoman of the Committee] presiding. | |
| Present: Representatives Velazquez, Finkenauer, Kim, | |
| Davids, Golden, Crow, Veasey, Evans, Schneider, Espaillat, | |
| Delgado, Houlahan, Chabot, Balderson, Hern, Stauber, Spano, and | |
| Joyce. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Good morning. The committee will come | |
| to order. | |
| It is a pleasure to have all of you testifying before our | |
| committee this morning. I applaud you for your leadership on | |
| behalf of America's small businesses. | |
| America's 30 million small businesses are the cornerstones | |
| of our communities. When a Main Street business succeeds, not | |
| only do hard-earned dollars get reinvested back into our | |
| neighborhoods, we also see robust job creation and innovation. | |
| But we all know that launching a small business is no task | |
| for the faint of heart. When it comes to turning a great idea | |
| into a thriving business, unfortunately, many entrepreneurs | |
| face a series of challenges. | |
| To break down these barriers, the SBA fosters a robust | |
| entrepreneurial ecosystem, one that offers free or low-cost | |
| counseling and training to entrepreneurs across the country. | |
| Whether it is helping to create a business plan, navigate the | |
| procurement process, market a new product, or identify trade | |
| opportunities, the SBA, through its resource partners, offers a | |
| wide range of services to help small businesses succeed. | |
| The SBA relies on four main partners to deliver these | |
| services--Small Business Development Centers, or SBDCs; Women's | |
| Business Centers, or WBCs; SCORE; and Veterans Business | |
| Outreach Centers, or VBOCs. Today, we are fortunate to be | |
| joined by their leaders. | |
| Entrepreneurial development initiatives are proven to be a | |
| great return on investment. Studies have shown that aspiring | |
| entrepreneurs and small business owners who receive counseling | |
| and training are able to increase sales and create more jobs. | |
| They are even proven to be more viable in the long term with | |
| those receiving 3 or more hours of counseling having higher 1- | |
| year survival rates. | |
| Every year, SBA's resource partners assist more than one | |
| million entrepreneurs, creating roughly 80,000 jobs. And for | |
| every dollar invested between 2012 and 2017, SBDCs returned $5 | |
| in revenues to federal and state governments. | |
| But, behind these numbers are very real experiences of | |
| hardworking entrepreneurs. Let me share with you the story of | |
| DogSpot, a woman-owned small business in Brooklyn, New York. | |
| Chelsea Brownridge was reluctant to take her high-energy | |
| terrier for a walk when she ran errands in Brooklyn. Realizing | |
| that other dog owners must face similar challenges, Chelsea got | |
| to work on developing a state-of-the-art doghouse for pet | |
| owners to safely and comfortably house their pets while | |
| shopping. | |
| For advice and assistance, Chelsea turned to the Brooklyn | |
| Small Business Development Center, which helped her secure $3.2 | |
| million in capital and hire 10 employees. Now, she is preparing | |
| to expand DogSpot to more cities nationwide. | |
| At today's hearing, I hope to hear similar success stories. | |
| However, I am also eager to learn more about what must be | |
| improved. | |
| While I commend each one of you for collectively serving | |
| over a million entrepreneurs per year, there are still more | |
| than 28 million small businesses that are not utilizing these | |
| services. Today, I would like to learn what more can be done to | |
| raise awareness for SBA counseling and training programs to | |
| ensure we are reaching as many entrepreneurs as possible. I | |
| also have concerns over the administration's past proposals to | |
| significantly reduce funding for these programs. Fortunately, | |
| there was a bicameral, bipartisan push this year to restore the | |
| proposed cuts. Providing robust levels of funding for these | |
| programs is essential to their success. | |
| Having said that, we must also ensure that taxpayer | |
| resources are being used wisely and to the maximum effect. That | |
| is why this committee has long pushed for clearer metrics and | |
| accountability. I would also like to hear our panelists | |
| thoughts on ways we can better measure the results of these | |
| valuable counseling and training programs. | |
| Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, | |
| and we should provide our entrepreneurs with the critical | |
| resources they need to succeed. I am eager to hear ideas today | |
| on how we can improve SBA's entrepreneurial development | |
| programs and better serve America's innovators. | |
| With that, I thank each of the witnesses for joining us | |
| today and look forward to your testimony. | |
| I would now like to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. | |
| Chabot, for his opening statement. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I apologize | |
| for running a little bit late there. I was in Foreign Affairs | |
| and our former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, and I was | |
| the next questioner and I had been there an hour, so again, I | |
| apologize for anything, my phone going off. | |
| Time and again, this Committee has lauded the importance of | |
| small businesses to the American economy. The impact that over | |
| 30 million small firms has on our nation simply cannot be | |
| overestimated. Given the vital nature of small businesses | |
| providing resources that help entrepreneurs and small business | |
| owners succeed must be a priority. The Small Business | |
| Administration's, or SBA's, Entrepreneurial Development | |
| programs provide those important resources. | |
| The SBA Entrepreneurial Development programs include Small | |
| Business Development Centers, or SBDCs; the Service Corps of | |
| Retired Executives, or SCORE; Women's Business Centers, or | |
| WBCs; and Veterans Business Outreach Centers, or VBOCs. | |
| These programs provide small business owners and | |
| entrepreneurs with technical and managerial training related to | |
| creating, running, and scaling a small business. While | |
| collectively these programs have provided business training and | |
| counseling to more than 1.5 million individuals in Fiscal Year | |
| 2017, each SBA Entrepreneurial Development Program is tasked | |
| with offering a unique and tailored curriculum. | |
| The SBDC program is the largest and highest funded | |
| Entrepreneurial Development Program, with nearly 1,000 | |
| locations all across this country, and provides a broad range | |
| of business counseling and training aimed at meeting the needs | |
| of both startup entrepreneurs and existing small business | |
| owners. | |
| While SBDCs focus on counseling and training, SCORE is | |
| tasked with providing mentorship. With roughly 800 locations | |
| nationally and over 11,000 volunteer mentors, SCORE seeks to | |
| pair entrepreneurs or business owners with a SCORE mentor who | |
| can offer specific and tailored business guidance. | |
| The WBC program provides business training and counseling | |
| specifically tailored to meet the needs of women entrepreneurs, | |
| often proving long-term training courses on nights and weekends | |
| at their 100 plus locations. | |
| Finally, VBOCs are responsible for providing | |
| entrepreneurial resources and transition assistance to our | |
| nation's veterans through both 20 center locations and other | |
| military locations throughout the country. | |
| Each of these Entrepreneurial Development programs plays a | |
| specific role in ensuring that our nation's small business | |
| owners have the resources they need to be successful. | |
| Today's hearing will allow us to the opportunity to learn | |
| more about these programs and how they serve America's | |
| entrepreneurs, while allowing us to ask appropriate questions, | |
| what is working and what needs to be improved within these | |
| programs. | |
| I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and having a | |
| productive conversation. | |
| And again, I thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I yield back. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. | |
| And if committee members have an opening statement | |
| prepared, we would ask that they be submitted for the record. | |
| I would like to take a minute to explain the timing rules. | |
| Each witness gets 5 minutes to testify and the members get 5 | |
| minutes for questioning. There is a lighting system to assist | |
| you. The green light will be on when you begin, and the yellow | |
| light comes on when you have 1 minute remaining. The red light | |
| comes on when you are out of time, and we ask that you stay | |
| within the timeframe to the best of your ability. | |
| I would now like to introduce our witnesses. | |
| Our first witness is Mr. Charles `` Tee'' Rowe. Mr. `` | |
| Tee'' Rowe is the president and CEO of America's SBDC, the | |
| association representing Small Business Development Centers. He | |
| joined America's SBDC in 2009 after serving at the Small | |
| Business Administration, first as the Assistant General Counsel | |
| for Legislation and Regulation, and then as the Associate | |
| Administrator for Congressional Administrative Affairs. Prior | |
| to that Mr. Rowe was a Counsel here at the House Small Business | |
| Committee for 6 years, as always welcome. | |
| Our second witness is Ms. Corinne Hodges. Ms. Hodges is the | |
| CEO of the Association of Women's Business Centers. Prior to | |
| joining the association in January 2019, Ms. Hodges led the | |
| public relations team for Kia Motors Manufacturing in Georgia. | |
| She is also an experienced small business owner. Ms. Hodges | |
| helped at her mother's woman-owned trucking company in | |
| Michigan, and also ran her own advertising and public relations | |
| agency. Welcome. | |
| Our third witness today is Mr. Kenneth Yancey. Mr. Yancey | |
| is the Chief Executive Officer at SCORE where he has led the | |
| nation's largest network of volunteer expert business mentors | |
| for more than 25 years. Before taking the leadership position | |
| at SCORE, Mr. Yancey was the Executive Director of the National | |
| Business Association. Recognized as one of the leading experts | |
| on small business, Mr. Yancey is a frequent contributor of many | |
| radio and television shows on the topics of entrepreneurship, | |
| small business trends, and volunteerism. Welcome. | |
| And now I will yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot, to | |
| introduce our final witness. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I would like to introduce today's final witness, Ms. | |
| Cherylynn Sagester. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Thank you. | |
| Ms. Sagester serves as the Director of the Veterans Business | |
| Outreach Center at Old Dominion University. The Old Dominion | |
| VBOC provides eligible veterans from Virginia, Delaware, | |
| Pennsylvania, and West Virginia with entrepreneurial training | |
| and counseling as a part of the University's Institute for | |
| Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the Old | |
| Dominion VBOC, Ms. Sagester had roughly 2 decades of experience | |
| in business and economic development within both the public, | |
| private, and nonprofit sectors, and we thank you for joining us | |
| this morning. | |
| I yield back. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. And now we recognize Mr. Rowe for 5 | |
| minutes. | |
| STATEMENTS OF CHARLES ROWE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICA'S SMALL | |
| BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTERS; CORINNE HODGES, CEO, ASSOCIATION | |
| OF WOMEN'S BUSINESS CENTERS; KEN YANCEY, CEO, SCORE | |
| ASSOCIATION; CHERYLYNN SAGESTER, VETERANS BUSINESS OUTREACH | |
| CENTER PROGRAM DIRECTOR, OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY | |
| STATEMENT OF CHARLES ROWE | |
| Mr. ROWE. Thank you, Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member | |
| Chabot, members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to | |
| testify on behalf of America's Small Business Development | |
| Centers. | |
| For 40 years, SBDCs have been providing services to small | |
| business owners, focusing on one-on-one advising to improve | |
| their businesses. | |
| As Mr. Chabot said, we have a network of over 975 locations | |
| with 4,000 dedicated professionals who assist hundreds of | |
| thousands of small businesses nationwide. | |
| We operate primarily through colleges and universities, and | |
| the SBDC hosts manage the networks and subcenters and provide | |
| matching funds. | |
| We serve small businesses at all stages. The mix is about | |
| 60/40, 60 percent existing, 40 percent startup. Forty-five | |
| percent of our clients are women, 10 percent are veterans, 33 | |
| percent are minorities. And yearly, we provide over 1.5 million | |
| hours of counseling and training to over 500,000 small | |
| businesses. | |
| From 2012 to 2018, SBDCs helped their clients obtain over | |
| $30 billion in capital, increase sales by $40 billion, and | |
| create over 538,000 jobs. | |
| Our services tend to be a little more in-depth and varied, | |
| so what I would like to highlight is some of the services, but | |
| more particularly, how we focus on them. | |
| Every SBDC undergoes accreditation, a week-long examination | |
| with a rigorous self-study, interviews, and written reports. | |
| The process is based on the NIST/Malcolm Baldridge quality | |
| standards. | |
| A key component is the needs assessment. The SBDC focuses | |
| on the client's needs locally and the local economy, ensuring | |
| service relevance. As a result, SBDCs offer both specialized | |
| services and general business assistance. | |
| For veterans, we prioritize assistance. We have specialized | |
| programs in states with large veteran populations to assist | |
| with pre and post deployment needs, and as well, we participate | |
| in Boots to Business and other transition assistance programs. | |
| Our outreach to underserved communities is also a | |
| significant priority. Our members support targeted outreach, | |
| covering everything from MB certification to business quarter | |
| revitalization. | |
| And we are mandated to cover entire states, so our | |
| initiatives reach rural needs as well. Our Texas SBDC hosts an | |
| annual rural conference, and our Alabama SBDC has a real strong | |
| collaboration with USDA. | |
| And we have over 500 certified export assistance counselors | |
| partnering with the Census Bureau to provide export training, | |
| and in many states the SBDC is a key component of the state's | |
| export program. | |
| And we are integral in disaster response and often the | |
| first on the scene to set up business recovery centers with | |
| FEMA and SBA. In Florida, for example, SBDC is a primary | |
| disaster responder for the state. | |
| We also 3 years ago started offering cybersecurity | |
| training. Small business owners lacked information and skills, | |
| so SBDCs developed assessment tools, training programs, and | |
| enhanced their cyber skills and ensured that small contractors | |
| are current on Federal cybersecurity requirements. | |
| And along the lines of procurement, 29 of the 94 PTACs are | |
| supported by SBDCs, offering in-depth assistance to small | |
| businesses navigating Federal procurement. Other SBDCs offer | |
| more introductory courses on contracting and help with | |
| certifications. | |
| Recently, we began collecting new SBA metrics. This year | |
| will be a baseline year, and our hope is that this will be a | |
| larger discussion on best ways to help small business. | |
| America's SBDCs do not believe in a one size fits all | |
| approach. Our networks have different resources and needs, and | |
| what we want to be sure is that the focus is on measures that | |
| reflect small business success. | |
| I just want to sum up here and say I talked about all the | |
| things we do, but the most important thing we do is work with | |
| all of our colleagues here at the table and the PTACs. We refer | |
| clients back and forth regularly because none of us can be all | |
| things to all small businesses. | |
| And with that in mind, I am just finally going to say we | |
| strongly support the idea of reauthorizing the Entrepreneurial | |
| Development Programs. I, in my written testimony, outlined a | |
| number of areas for consideration and I look forward to your | |
| questions on that. I think it is time for a full conversation | |
| on the services and all of our commitments. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Rowe. | |
| And now, Ms. Hodges, you are recognized for 5 minutes. | |
| STATEMENT OF CORINNE HODGES | |
| Ms. HODGES. Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member Chabot, | |
| and distinguished members of the Committee, good morning, and | |
| thank you so much for convening today's hearing. | |
| My name is Corinne Hodges, and I serve as the CEO of the | |
| Association of Women's Business Centers. | |
| Our organization supports the network of WBCs by providing | |
| programming and advocacy to improve services to women | |
| entrepreneurs. I am honored to be here today, and I am joined | |
| by our board who is behind me. | |
| The WBC program is a public-private partnership with over | |
| 30 years of success in providing long-term training, | |
| counseling, mentoring, and access to capital to women | |
| entrepreneurs across the country. | |
| What began as four demonstration sites in 1988 is now a | |
| network of 114 centers with more than 150 locations nationwide. | |
| In no small part, thanks to this Committee for your effort | |
| there and support. In that time, WBCs have served more than 2 | |
| million women entrepreneurs leading to the creation and | |
| expansion of tens of thousands of new businesses and jobs. | |
| In Fiscal Year 2017, we reached 148,000 entrepreneurs, | |
| ranging from startups seeking capital to established businesses | |
| exploring new markets. Each year we help to secure hundreds of | |
| millions of dollars in financing, assisting in winning | |
| government and corporate contracts, and support the hiring of | |
| thousands of new employees. | |
| According to the SBA's 2015 report, the most recently | |
| released, 96 percent of WBC clients reported revenue growth | |
| totaling a staggering $658 million. This led to one in 10 | |
| businesses hiring at least one new employee, creating nearly | |
| 25,000 jobs. | |
| WBCs also play a significant role in fueling the growth of | |
| minority-owned businesses. Forty-five percent of clients in | |
| 2016 were minorities, which required many centers to adapt. | |
| Today, 64 percent of WBCs provide programming in two or more | |
| languages, and nationally services are provided in more than 35 | |
| languages. | |
| Each WBC is unique, designing program and delivery models | |
| with their communities in mind. At the Brooklyn Women's | |
| Business Center where fashion and beauty knowledge was in | |
| demand, counselors created training to meet the needs within | |
| that industry. They brought in beauty experts, celebrity | |
| stylists, and even intellectual property attorneys to help | |
| protect their clients' creations. They now plan to purchase | |
| sewing machines and offer classes on site for those interested | |
| in creating fashion prototypes or textile manufacturing. | |
| Our services are distinctly different from other resource | |
| partners due in large part to the unique challenges facing | |
| women business owners. Our clients consistently say they come | |
| to WBCs not just for business education and consulting, but for | |
| supportive environment that helps build self-efficacy through | |
| addressing four critical issues--competence, confidence, | |
| capital, and connection. The result is real economic impact | |
| felt by the client and their community. | |
| Janay Brower, a WBC client in Michigan, owns an upcycling | |
| manufacturing company called Public Thread. It was with the | |
| support of other business women that she moved this business | |
| out of her kitchen and into a commercial manufacturing space. | |
| As she puts it, women are uniquely positioned to see the long- | |
| term benefits to communities rather than just the short-term | |
| financial goals. | |
| Evaluation data from WBC programs indicate that women like | |
| Janay who receive business assistance from their programs build | |
| larger businesses, create more jobs, and have significantly | |
| higher survivor rates than the national average. | |
| Women's Economic Ventures in California boasts an 80 | |
| percent survival rate after 5 years for its clients, far above | |
| the national average of 50 percent. Moreover, more than 40 | |
| percent of their clients have employees compared to the | |
| national average of only 12 percent of all woman-owned firms. | |
| In Chicago, the Women's Business Development Center created | |
| the Developing Your Childcare business course, | |
| professionalizing dozens of home-based businesses in low-income | |
| communities. | |
| Finally, and perhaps most critically, the WBC program has | |
| proven to be a good investment of taxpayer dollars. Private | |
| sector fund-raising enhanced by the visibility of the SBA | |
| partnership helps to match Federal dollars more than three to | |
| one. For every one Federal dollar invested in the program, the | |
| WBC program returns $46 to the economy. | |
| And yet, we are not realizing our full potential. We need | |
| policymakers to strengthen and modernize the WBC program, | |
| expanding our proven impact to communities across the country. | |
| We urge Congress to raise a 30-year-old arbitrary cap that | |
| prevents our best centers from expanding and remove outdated | |
| requirements that divert resources from counseling to back | |
| office bureaucracy. A key inefficiency that comes to mind | |
| actually provides a disincentive for centers to raise | |
| additional nonfederal funds. | |
| The upward trajectory of the program is also deserving of | |
| more Federal funding. Ensuring adequate resources is a key | |
| component to continuing the growth of the WBC program and | |
| women's entrepreneurship more broadly. | |
| Unfortunately, resources for the program have not grown in | |
| parallel to the more than 50 percent increase in centers over | |
| the last 15 years, so we urge congressional action to improve | |
| data collection in order to quantify just how much growth is | |
| happening. | |
| The challenges facing women entrepreneurs persist as must | |
| the commitment of Congress to advancing these priorities. | |
| Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I am open to | |
| your questions. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you, Ms. Hodges. | |
| And now, Mr. Yancey, you are recognized for 5 minutes. | |
| STATEMENT OF KEN YANCEY | |
| Mr. YANCEY. Chairman Velazquez, Ranking Member Chabot, | |
| members of the Committee, my name is Ken Yancey, and I am the | |
| CEO at SCORE. Thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony | |
| to the Committee regarding SCORE's programs, services, and | |
| plans for the future. We appreciate being on the witness panel | |
| with our friends and partners from the SBDC, Women's Business | |
| Centers, and the VBOCs, and we also want to thank our founding | |
| partner, who 55 years ago established our organization and | |
| continues to be that primary partner, the SBA. | |
| Fiscal Year 2018 was another effective year for SCORE as | |
| measured by client volume, impact, and client engagement. In | |
| Fiscal Year 2018, SCORE helped clients to create more than | |
| 32,000 new small businesses, and 136,000 total jobs. Our cost | |
| to create a job is $81. The cost to create a business is $340. | |
| This efficiency in creating jobs and businesses provides a | |
| tremendous return on all Federal dollars invested in SCORE. In | |
| Fiscal Year 2018 alone, SCORE clients returned an estimated $47 | |
| in new tax revenue to the Federal treasury for every dollar | |
| appropriated to SCORE. | |
| Through an annual survey completed by | |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers, SCORE has measured client engagement | |
| for nearly a decade. In Fiscal Year 2018, SCORE client | |
| engagement, a measure similar to client satisfaction, was 4.29 | |
| on a 5-point scale, a significant increase from the previous | |
| year. | |
| We are proud of the work our volunteers do with clients, | |
| and this improvement continues to show that our volunteer | |
| onboarding, certification, and training do work. | |
| Last year, we began the implementation of SCORE's Vision | |
| 2025, a futures initiative intended to ensure our relevancy for | |
| the next 50 years. Vision 2025 guides decision and | |
| organizational development within SCORE. | |
| As an organization, we must continue our ongoing cultural | |
| transformation by operating with a one SCORE mindset in which | |
| headquarters, chapters, volunteers, and the SCORE foundation | |
| work together to achieve the goals of increased focus on | |
| clients, quality, accountability, and growth. | |
| Examples of our one SCORE approach include the | |
| standardization of all chapter websites resulting in greater | |
| web traffic, consistent messaging and branding, and increased | |
| client services. | |
| SCORE is developing a new salesforce-based CRM system that | |
| will be deployed in Fiscal Year 2020. The system will make it | |
| easier for both volunteers and clients to do business with | |
| SCORE, and it is mobile friendly, allowing both to engage with | |
| SCORE via their handheld device. | |
| SCORE has centralized social media in 270 chapters. | |
| Participating chapters saw an 8.9 percent increase in services, | |
| triple that of nonpilot chapters. | |
| SCORE is centralizing all accounting and finance systems | |
| nationwide. Centralizing accounting functions will reduce the | |
| administrative burden at the chapter level, allowing our | |
| leaders to focus more on client needs. It also allows chapters | |
| to continue to have control over their funds, and importantly, | |
| reduces risk at the organizational level. | |
| SCORE standardized volunteer onboarding and volunteer | |
| training, resulting in greater consistency of services, | |
| improved quality, and greater client impact. | |
| One of SCORE's most important initiatives is diversity and | |
| inclusion. SCORE is committed to improving the diversity of | |
| both clients and volunteers and ensuring that SCORE is | |
| intentionally inclusive at every level of the organization. In | |
| 2017, a National Inclusion Task Force was formed to drive | |
| strategic cultural change throughout SCORE. By year's end, all | |
| volunteer leaders have been trained in sessions across the | |
| country and online inclusivity training is now mandatory | |
| annually for all of our volunteers. | |
| We have improved from 22 percent women and minority | |
| volunteers in 2012 to 31 percent in 2018. Client diversity has | |
| improved as well. This, however, is not good enough. We | |
| continue to aggressively address these challenges. Our goal is | |
| to effectively serve all people with respect, dignity, and | |
| professionalism regardless of their adjective. | |
| To help SCORE achieve its goal to better serve its goals | |
| our clients and achieve all that our volunteers are capable of, | |
| we respectfully request an authorization and appropriation of | |
| $13.5 million in Fiscal Year 2020. We also request a 3-year | |
| authorization of $13.5 million in 2020, $13.5 million in 2021, | |
| and $15.5 million in 2022. I would also encourage the Committee | |
| to support and invest in the other resource partners who are | |
| here who are part of the entrepreneurial fabric of all | |
| communities where we serve and outstanding partners in those | |
| communities as well. | |
| Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today, | |
| and I look forward to any questions. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Sagester, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. | |
| STATEMENT OF CHERYLYNN SAGESTER | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Good morning. And I want to thank Chairwoman | |
| Velazquez, and Ranking Member, Mr. Chabot, for this opportunity | |
| to speak before you this morning, as well as I am honored to | |
| join our other major resource partners that serve small | |
| businesses in our country. | |
| There is no better time to be a startup entrepreneur in the | |
| U.S. than at this moment. The financial conditions are | |
| certainly favorable, as well as the economic outlook for the | |
| future; not to mention the traditional negative and/or | |
| skeptical mindset regarding entrepreneurship is a thing of the | |
| past. Entrepreneurship is currently thought of not only in a | |
| positive light, but is considered the `` thing to do,'' | |
| especially if you are a millennial or a veteran. And if that is | |
| the case, it is thought of as the way to achieve autonomy, | |
| success, and independent wealth. | |
| Furthermore, research conducted after each major war since | |
| post-WWII tells us veteran entrepreneurship significantly | |
| increases after each major war, and the Iraq and Afghanistan | |
| war is no different. Research has also shown veterans make the | |
| best entrepreneurs, as they acquire skills and character that | |
| are conducive to what is required for entrepreneurial success. | |
| An example of those character traits are as follows: we have an | |
| excellent work ethic, we have a sound understanding of the need | |
| for a plan and the necessity to follow the plan, veterans are | |
| risk-adverse, and failure is not an option, among other traits. | |
| In addition, these new veterans are the most educated and | |
| technologically advanced service members than any before them. | |
| When considering this, combined with the previously mentioned | |
| character traits gained by military service, you have a sector | |
| of the population that is prime for taking on entrepreneurship | |
| and thereby, control over their future. | |
| On the other hand, startups have many challenges, as any | |
| form of entrepreneurship does. In particular, a startup is | |
| immediately challenged when it comes to startup capital. A | |
| startup is like any small business. Funding is the biggest | |
| obstacle to confront, along with lack of experience or | |
| knowledge as an entrepreneur. With that said, the following | |
| statistics provide validity to what is observed in the startup | |
| and entrepreneurial community. Approximately 50 percent of | |
| small businesses fail in the first 4 years, with the leading | |
| cause being incompetence and lack of managerial experience at | |
| 30 percent, and 82 percent of the businesses fail due to cash | |
| flow deficiency. | |
| As the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of | |
| Veterans Business Development, we are a premier entrepreneurial | |
| development program. As the Veteran Business Outreach Centers | |
| located across the U.S., and there are 22 of us, with each | |
| center responsible for a geographic region that covers multiple | |
| states. For example, the center that I oversee as the director | |
| of Region III includes the states of Virginia and West | |
| Virginia. We are located at Old Dominion University Veterans | |
| Business Outreach Center, as part of the university's Institute | |
| for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This center is located | |
| approximately 5.2 miles from the Naval Station Norfolk, the | |
| largest naval base in the world, who transitions out over | |
| 10,000 sailors each year, and for the last 6 years it has done | |
| this and continues to do so as our estimates show. | |
| With the last few minutes of my time I would like to focus | |
| on the three requirements that we have as VBOCs. Number one is | |
| military transition. And that includes military spouses as | |
| well. And a part of that military transition program is one of | |
| the best known entrepreneurial programs I have ever seen in my | |
| career, and that is a program called Boots to Business. Boots | |
| to Business is a 2-day intense introduction to entrepreneurship | |
| that our transitioning service members go through. It is | |
| delivered on an installation of which they are transitioning | |
| out, and it is one of three tracks that they are given. | |
| I look forward to the opportunity to speak more about Boots | |
| to Business. I look forward to the opportunity to talk about | |
| military spouses, as well as economic disadvantaged areas of | |
| the states that we cover and how it is that we are able to | |
| achieve our requirements. Military transition outreach and | |
| other trainings, as well as business counseling, which is the | |
| magic. That is where the magic happens. | |
| And I thank this Committee and all guests for this | |
| opportunity. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you, Ms. Sagester. | |
| And now I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. | |
| One of my top priorities for this Congress is to, of | |
| course, review and update and modernize the entrepreneurial | |
| development programs. So I am giving you this opportunity, each | |
| one of you, to tell me in your view what is working, what is | |
| working well, and what needs to be improved. | |
| Mr. Rowe? | |
| Mr. ROWE. I think the programs here at the table are | |
| working quite well. We try very hard to work together. We are | |
| all limited by resources, I think, at a certain level. | |
| Sometimes the biggest problem we face is kind of a lack of | |
| clear guidance. It is sort of like we are all on a team | |
| together. We have got goals set for ourselves but nobody has | |
| told us what the big goal is at the end. It is sort of like we | |
| are all there playing football but nobody is talking about the | |
| Super Bowl. And to me that is what are we trying to get to, all | |
| of us and the SBA, an endgame for small business in this | |
| country? And there is just not a clear vision. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Hodges? | |
| Ms. HODGES. I would agree with Mr. Rowe. I speak for the | |
| WBC program and it does work well. Indeed, we surpass or exceed | |
| the targets that SBA sets for us so we see the program as very | |
| successful. | |
| What is not working for us is just the outdated statute | |
| that you mentioned. Reauthorization for us means, hopefully, | |
| increased appropriations that specifically would lift the cap | |
| per center, which is a 30-year-old cap, and also allow | |
| additional funding for us to have more centers. Also, we would | |
| entertain the idea and support the idea of accreditation that | |
| would most likely be modeled after the SBDCS. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Yancey? | |
| Mr. YANCEY. I know that the SBA is working hard at all | |
| levels on additional transparency. It is good to know as Tee | |
| said who is doing what and what the end goal is. I also know | |
| that the SBA is working to update and upgrade their | |
| technological systems. That would be valuable and useful for | |
| us. We do our own measurement as you heard. It is important to | |
| us. It provides far more information than just impact. We use | |
| it to manage, and we would not want to at any point lose that | |
| opportunity to do that on our own. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Sagester? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. I can say I absolutely agree with Tee. All of | |
| us resource partners, we appreciate the value that we all bring | |
| to the small business owner and the entrepreneur and | |
| collaborate quite often. As a matter of fact, in our suite we | |
| have a VBOC, we have a Women's Business Center, and we have a | |
| PTAC, Procurement Technical Assistance Center, which we are | |
| constantly collaborating. So I think that is going really well. | |
| I think we, personally, our center has experienced great | |
| success with also our SBA district office in Richmond for | |
| Virginia and work extremely well with the two district offices | |
| in the state of West Virginia. And not to mention, our | |
| headquarters here in D.C. with the OVBD is very supportive. | |
| Where I would like to see some action, that would be very | |
| similar as well to my colleagues, and that is the | |
| appropriations. We are covering multi states that require | |
| extensive travel and expenses. And what keeps me awake at | |
| night, is serving those that are not in my immediate area. And | |
| so with additional appropriations and consideration for the | |
| mission that we have, that is where I think we could have a | |
| greater impact. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. | |
| As you know, the SBA now is moving towards outcome-based | |
| measures, like unique clients served and new business starts | |
| from the output-based data. So do you believe these goals | |
| better measure the quality of services that you provide? | |
| Tee? | |
| Mr. ROWE. They can, but I think there are problems with all | |
| of them. If you look at new business starts, unless that is a | |
| longitudinal view, you know, more than a 1 year snapshot, you | |
| do not know whether you have created a good business or a | |
| business that is going to fail in 6 months. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. So is SBA working with you in | |
| establishing these goals? What type of input, feedback are you | |
| providing, all of you? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Well, we have had a few meetings with SBA. I | |
| would like to establish this as an ongoing collaborative effort | |
| to negotiate what our goals are nationally and individually | |
| amongst the networks because they are all changing. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Okay. So I am sorry but I would like | |
| to hear from the other centers' programs. | |
| Ms. Hodges, what is your take on this new development? | |
| Ms. HODGES. Sure. It is still very new, this move toward | |
| capturing the unique clients versus total clients served. That | |
| is a more fair number. It is a better number. Where we lack is | |
| in some of the access to the data collected. We are working on | |
| that, and SBA is committed to that as well and we are glad for | |
| that. We encourage all of the partners at the table, SBA, and | |
| Congress, to continue to prioritize this fact, this matter. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Yancey? | |
| Mr. YANCEY. The information that we have been asked to | |
| collect is information we had previously collected. I am not | |
| sure that in a vacuum it tells the best story. We like to ask a | |
| question at SCORE, did SCORE help you? Seventy-seven percent of | |
| the clients say we did. You might not have started a business. | |
| We might have helped you understand you were not quite ready | |
| and what was next, so there are metrics in value beyond just | |
| the creation of a job and the creation of a business. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Okay. Ms. Sagester? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. One of the difficult metrics to acquire is | |
| how many businesses are successful and how long have they been | |
| in business. It is very difficult to get these clients to | |
| report to us. We have tried surveys, phone calls, letters, | |
| everything. Once they get off the ground and they are growing | |
| and running, they say they are too busy to get back to us. That | |
| is a metric that we need to figure out, how can we better | |
| measure the successes? | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. My time has expired and | |
| now I yield to the Ranking Member for 5 minutes. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| And the first question will be to all the panelists. I will | |
| start with you, Tee. | |
| In the current economic environment, unemployment being so | |
| low, a lot of small businesses, and I hear this back in my | |
| district all the time when I tour various small businesses | |
| there, they are struggling to find qualified people. In what | |
| way does your particular program assist small businesses who | |
| are facing the problem that they just cannot find good people? | |
| And a lot of times I hear, well, they need to show up for work | |
| consistently and pass a drug test and those kind of things. And | |
| unfortunately, there are a lot of folks that that is not the | |
| case with. | |
| So Mr. Rowe? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Well, what most SBDCs work on is assisting the | |
| clients with managing a new workforce. But what we hear | |
| constantly from them is that there is a lack of workforce | |
| development with the exception in some of the skilled union | |
| trades. And really what they need is help developing | |
| apprenticeship programs that can help the vast majority of | |
| small businesses and service industries, et cetera, to build a | |
| workforce. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Hodges? | |
| Ms. HODGES. Workforce development, obviously, is a critical | |
| need in the country nationwide. For any business who is | |
| suffering from the ability to attract and recruit the qualified | |
| and talented workforce that they need, they would benefit from | |
| the long-term training opportunities that we provide in our | |
| centers. It is really I think something unique in our program, | |
| the ability for us to build that relationship and provide the | |
| long-term training because these solutions are not easy and | |
| they are not quick. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Yancey? | |
| Mr. YANCEY. Similar to our colleagues, we would bring in | |
| volunteers with HR experience, particularly in recruiting. Help | |
| clients to package their opportunity differently and maybe | |
| better than competing organizations. Talk about training that | |
| could occur for a new employee. Opportunities that could occur | |
| and help them compete better and be more prepared in a really | |
| difficult environment where there is truly a war for talent | |
| right now. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Sagester? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. In our area we have the VEC, the Veteran | |
| Employment Center, and we are the veteran partner for them. And | |
| so many times what happens is veterans, of course, also make | |
| great employees. They show up for work. They have a good work | |
| ethic. So we are working with the VEC and we are providing | |
| training on site. We have a new center there in Norfolk and we | |
| are providing employment training right on site. I think what | |
| we are looking at, too, across the country is we need to better | |
| train folks for the jobs that are available now, especially in | |
| the trades because we do not want to lose those. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. | |
| Mr. Rowe, let me go to you again. Your testimony noted that | |
| SBDCs are often located at colleges and universities. Other | |
| than being located there, in other ways, what ways does the | |
| host institution and the SBDC work together other than being at | |
| the same place? | |
| Mr. ROWE. We actually have a lot of resources from the | |
| business schools where we use the student body, the professors, | |
| to bring new management concepts out to our small business | |
| owners. Also, there is a huge science and technical component | |
| where we work with SBIR applicants regularly to help make sure | |
| that there is a broad array of small businesses accessing those | |
| R&D dollars. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. | |
| Ms. Hodges, in your testimony you highlighted the | |
| importance of Women's Business Centers serving economically | |
| disadvantaged and underserved populations. How do your centers | |
| specifically target that demographic? | |
| Ms. HODGES. I will not say that this is how we target the | |
| demographic, but they are best served by providing not only the | |
| counseling, the competence factor and confidence, but access to | |
| capital is so critical. In fact, I think our program represents | |
| the majority of the microenterprise lenders in the room. And | |
| this access to capital is just not available to a lot of these | |
| entrepreneurs in any other way. If it were not for these | |
| microenterprise lenders which comprise 40 percent of our | |
| centers, quite honestly, these entrepreneurs would not have | |
| access to it at all. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Okay. I am almost at an end, so rather than ask | |
| a question I will just tell you, Mr. Yancey, I have had an | |
| opportunity to speak at various gatherings of SCORE and meet | |
| with them on occasion, and I now you all do a tremendous amount | |
| of good for a whole lot of folks so I will just leave it there. | |
| Thank you. And I bet you agree with that. | |
| Mr. YANCEY. Yes, sir. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Okay. Very good. Thank you. | |
| I yield back. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. | |
| And now I recognize the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on | |
| Rural Development, Agriculture Trade, and Entrepreneurship from | |
| Iowa, Ms. Finkenauer for 5 minutes. | |
| Ms. FINKENAUER. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I really appreciate you all being here today. You all do | |
| incredible work and I am very grateful for your service and | |
| everything that you do. | |
| So I have to tell you, so I am from Iowa, one. It is about | |
| a fourth of the state of Iowa. So we have got kind of three | |
| bigger cities and then the rest is pretty rural with some | |
| smaller towns. And despite the weather lately, my favorite | |
| thing, obviously, a part of this job is getting to go back and | |
| have my work periods and getting to meet with folks all over | |
| the district. And this last work period, so last week, I had a | |
| great opportunity to go visit University of Northern Iowa, and | |
| their business community service program, and also a small | |
| business in one of our smaller towns, Maquoketa, called | |
| Precision Metal Works. And at the university it was great to | |
| get to visit them. I have done it multiple times, but again, | |
| this was one of the first times really focusing on their | |
| business center. And they are doing a great job. I mean, they | |
| are housing the Small Business Development Center along with | |
| other programs all under one roof where you are helping small | |
| businesses, entrepreneurs, even helping governments with | |
| marketing, new business incubation, and even help with | |
| regulatory compliance. | |
| And then Precision Metal Works, it is a great business | |
| model. They have been in Maquoketa since the 1980s, and on top | |
| of their regular business, which is helping with commercial | |
| washers, they also work a lot with some of our other folks in | |
| the state and across the country who come in and say I have a | |
| great idea for this. Can you manufacture it for me? And see | |
| what we do here. And I have been hearing great stories from | |
| what they have been able to do, but unfortunately, even though | |
| we see this in my district and it is happening, I mean, the | |
| data according to the Office of Advocacy is just showing that, | |
| you know, rural self-employment since 1988 to 2016 has fallen | |
| like 20 percent. And then on top of it we are also lacking more | |
| youth entrepreneurs as well. | |
| So this really is to Mr. Rowe and anybody else who wants to | |
| jump in on it. I am very curious of all your takes on it. But | |
| what are some of the bigger challenges that rural entrepreneurs | |
| are facing? And then what are some of the efforts that you are | |
| taking to ensure that rural small businesses are receiving the | |
| technical assistance they require to build a robust, | |
| sustainable business? And is marketing a part of that suite? | |
| Because that was one of the things that really stuck out to me | |
| with talking to Precision Metal Works with some of the folks | |
| they are working with. They have got great products they are | |
| developing, yet the next step, that marketing part, you know, | |
| they have fallen behind on. And so, and it helps them if that | |
| small business they are helping does well. So I am trying to | |
| figure out what more can we be doing? And are we missing | |
| anything? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Well, one of the bigger problems we see and we | |
| face with our clients in rural areas is simply a lack of | |
| broadband and a lack of internet access that really helps them. | |
| You cannot reach the world now the way you used to. You have | |
| got to be internet savvy, but you have also got to be able to | |
| get serious broadband access. | |
| Now, SBDCs are located at colleges and universities, but | |
| they tend to be just like isolated islands of broadband. And | |
| building that infrastructure is a huge issue. And I know that | |
| my folks have talked to you about this. I have talked with Mr. | |
| Kelly about it. That is probably a key focus for us, how can we | |
| get more broadband to our clients to get their products to the | |
| world? | |
| Ms. FINKENAUER. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Hodges? | |
| Ms. HODGES. Thank you. | |
| It is an ongoing challenge, but I think we can also, in | |
| addition to the comments Mr. Rowe made, we can be innovative. | |
| And some of our centers have done just that. For example, in | |
| Oklahoma, one of our centers bought buses outfitted with | |
| entrepreneurial labs and drove to the clients across the state. | |
| And in Nebraska, we actually do not have a brick and mortar | |
| center location; rather, those resources are used to deploy the | |
| counselors and the resources all across the state. So again, | |
| going to the rural areas to serve. And then sounding like a | |
| broken record, more resources, you know, appropriate would also | |
| help support that greater infrastructure needed. | |
| Ms. FINKENAUER. Great. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Yancey? | |
| Mr. YANCEY. I do not have a lot to add. I think the | |
| broadband issue is a real challenge. Our desire is to serve | |
| communities using web-based technologies that allow us to do | |
| that, and where broadband is not available, our ability to | |
| serve without bricks and mortar is very, very limited. We do | |
| circuit rides, not exactly like buses and things, but we do try | |
| and get out. But the broadband piece is important. And it is | |
| very expensive to do that, so the funding available for that | |
| purpose would be helpful as well. | |
| Ms. FINKENAUER. Thank you. | |
| And Ms. Sagester, I am sorry. I know my time has expired, | |
| but thank you so much for being here, all of you. And Madam | |
| Chair, I yield back. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentlelady yields back. | |
| And now we recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. | |
| Balderson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Innovation and | |
| Workforce Development for 5 minutes. | |
| Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you also | |
| to the Committee. | |
| My dear colleague, Mr. Chabot, kind of jumped on my | |
| question for you, Mr. Rowe, but it was quite a coincidence this | |
| morning. I have gotten pretty savvy here on my phone. I even | |
| highlighted it. But I am reading the newspaper at 6:30 this | |
| morning, the Plymouth Dispatch, which is my district big | |
| newspaper, and it was a study that has been done, and this | |
| organization does it every year annually for small businesses. | |
| And 56.9 percent of the companies identified finding qualified | |
| workers as their biggest issue and their biggest challenge to | |
| doing business and finding those qualified workers. This has | |
| been the top issue for them the last 5 years during this | |
| survey. So I thought that was pretty interesting this morning | |
| for me to come across that at 6:30, 6:35, and to see this. | |
| So my question, Mr. Rowe is, you know, as the Ranking | |
| Member on the Subcommittee for Innovation and Workforce | |
| Development, this is something I am very passionate about. Are | |
| there any ideas out there that the SBDCs and the 17:32:09xxx | |
| program, that they can give us suggestions with or any | |
| conclusion on that of what support we can do? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Well, I have actually been privileged to be | |
| tasked to work with a working group at the Department of Labor | |
| on what they call industry recognized apprenticeship programs. | |
| And essentially what we are trying to do is find a way to | |
| formalize the apprenticeship programs in a variety of | |
| industries outside of the skilled trades, the registered | |
| apprenticeship programs that you find at DOL and expand the | |
| ability to get workforce. And I think I see my role on that as, | |
| yes, we have so many clients out there who could use this. What | |
| we need to do is develop those accredited programs to train | |
| these folks. | |
| Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Sagester, I apologize. My question to you would be my | |
| office met yesterday with a group from the American Legion and | |
| had, you know, some of the issues that they were discussing was | |
| problems that many veterans have lack of access to skilled | |
| training programs that would help them transition into the | |
| workforce. | |
| My question is, is there anything out there more that we | |
| could do to help address this problem? You do not have to go | |
| through a whole list of things. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. As I had been mentioning with regard to | |
| veteran employment, we are partnering as well with, like I | |
| said, the Virginia Employment Commission. And there are many | |
| veterans who have trades to be a good small business owner. So | |
| what we are seeing a lot of and we are promoting is helping | |
| them find employment so that they can support themselves and | |
| their families and then help and assist them on the side to | |
| start preparing themselves for small business ownership. And we | |
| have got several that are in that program right now. And | |
| therefore, it helps solve some of the labor problem's and the | |
| veterans' issues, as well as their future. But as far as our | |
| center also goes, we do a lot of in-house training. A lot on | |
| business itself. You know, life skills. They have a hard time | |
| converting their military vita into a resume. It is very | |
| difficult for them and they do not even see the similarities. | |
| So we are providing support with that as well. | |
| Mr. BALDERSON. Okay. I do want to add, and I would love to | |
| work with your organization on something like this, but in the | |
| state of Ohio, in the state legislature where I serve, we get a | |
| bill for veterans for CDL license. A veteran coming back in and | |
| having done that job in the military service and having that | |
| ability to do that and taking away a lot of the, I guess I will | |
| use the word `` red tape'' or bureaucracy to get that license | |
| back again, and that has been a big tap that has been filled. I | |
| should not say `` big'' but it has been filled a little bit. | |
| And that is something I would like to see us do at the Federal | |
| level. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. We had a similar program such as that at | |
| Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach. And it works | |
| extremely well. We have the same similar program with regard to | |
| military firefighters and security officers. So it is a great | |
| transition. | |
| Mr. BALDERSON. I look forward to working with you. | |
| And Madam Chair, I yield back the remaining time. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. I would welcome the opportunity, sir. | |
| Mr. BALDERSON. Thank you. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. | |
| And now the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Golden, Chairman of | |
| the Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure is | |
| recognized for 5 minutes. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| Ms. Sagester, I think I will kind of go where it sounded | |
| like you might have been talking a little bit about something | |
| that is top of mind for you, which is how do you reach out to | |
| those people that are far away from your center. And just to | |
| give you a sense of why I share that concern with you, Virginia | |
| has an awful lot of veterans, which is a great thing. And Maine | |
| does not have as many, but when we look at the per capita | |
| statistics it is about one in 10. And that is even stronger out | |
| in rural Maine, in the district that I represent, a much higher | |
| per capita percentage. Yet, our closest center, similar to | |
| yours, is in Rhode Island, three states away. So I think we | |
| agree that more centers would be better if there were enough | |
| funding for that. | |
| But what is the appropriate ratio in your opinion around | |
| the country? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. With regard to? | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. Number of centers? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Number of centers. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. To region or---- | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Well, we have 22 centers as I was saying. And | |
| a great deal of where those 22 centers are located depends on | |
| what organizations apply and respond to the proposal to have a | |
| center. That is where a great of it really is if they do not-- | |
| if the SBA does not receive any proposals from a certain area, | |
| then that area kind of misses out. So it is something that you | |
| could encourage in your area, is for organizations to apply | |
| when the opportunity is there on grants.gov. | |
| But I would like to just say real quickly, with regard to | |
| the economic disadvantaged rural areas that we have, that is | |
| what keeps me awake at night. I want to make sure that all the | |
| constituents that we are responsible for have access to our | |
| resources if at all possible. So we have now been able for the | |
| last year--it took me 4 years to be able to get there--but we | |
| now offer all of our trainings are webinars. And we promote | |
| that. But the challenge we are having is getting the word out | |
| to those rural areas that this resource is available. That is | |
| one of the areas that we really, I think need to focus on is | |
| how can we better market all of our resources and all of our | |
| partners. So I am personally going to West Virginia next month, | |
| and I will be there for a week doing just that. And I am also | |
| traveling to some of our disadvantaged areas here in Virginia, | |
| such as Wise County. And we are working with the American | |
| Legion out there to do some outreach. That is very, very, very | |
| important because we cannot help them if they do not know we | |
| are here and have the information to dial in for those webinars | |
| and go to the website and listen to podcasts or so on and so | |
| forth. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. Thank you very much for that. | |
| That brings me to another point which coming off district | |
| week traveling all over a very large rural area I have talked | |
| to no shortage of small business owners in the last week and in | |
| the past couple of months. And look, we often ask, you know, | |
| are you aware of these programs, each of the ones that you all | |
| run, and about SBA in particular. And often, it is not the | |
| first thing that small business owners are thinking about in | |
| rural Maine. So I have got to put a plug in there to this | |
| Committee, let us pick up the marketing and make sure that it | |
| is out there. Obviously, Maine's region should be looking to | |
| put in an application for a center in Maine. Rhode Island is | |
| like a life's time away from rural Maine. So that is just not | |
| good enough. | |
| And when it comes to this issue of reaching out on the | |
| internet, I mean, broadband sounds great. What we often hear | |
| people in Maine saying is we will just take faster internet | |
| because it is practically dial up in many regions. | |
| If I could, Mr. Rowe, just a question for you. Sitting in a | |
| community recent, this issue of workforce cane up. And there | |
| were many different industries sitting around the table, a lot | |
| of small business. And while they did not have necessarily all | |
| the same types of work requirements, there were some shared | |
| factors in terms of the needs that are lacking in the community | |
| and our workforce. And so we had about 20 different business | |
| owners sitting, as well as Chamber of Commerce and municipal | |
| leaders trying to get at this issue of how do we establish some | |
| kind of training program to get workers in here. What would be | |
| the proper way for them to interface with someone like SBDC? | |
| Can they come to you as a group? Can the whole community come | |
| to you and work with you? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Sure. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. Okay. | |
| Mr. ROWE. Absolutely, sir. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. Very good. So they do not have to pick one | |
| business to lead? | |
| Mr. ROWE. No. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. They could actually reach out to you as an | |
| entire municipality? | |
| Mr. ROWE. No. Mark Delisle at USM is our state director and | |
| I am sure he would be happy to hear from them. | |
| Mr. GOLDEN. Thank you. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman yields back. | |
| And now we recognize Mr. Joyce from Pennsylvania, Ranking | |
| Member of the Subcommittee on Rural Development, Agriculture, | |
| Entrepreneurship, and Trade for 5 minutes. | |
| Mr. JOYCE. Thank you. And thank you for being here today | |
| because what you bring to us is so important. | |
| Mr. Rowe, you talked about the lack of internet | |
| capabilities. I am from South Central Pennsylvania, from | |
| Gettysburg out to where Flight 93 went down. Even as we travel | |
| we lose our navigation systems. We know that broadband is very | |
| limited in these areas. I think that each one of you would be | |
| able to more effectively do your jobs with a better broadband | |
| system, particularly when facing rural areas. I think we | |
| recognize that as a Committee. I think that we are all aware | |
| that there could be improvements made in that. | |
| I am going to turn this question around because I think | |
| each one of you bring a different skillset to the table. And | |
| you do have the abilities to communicate with each other. | |
| Mr. Rowe, your group is incredible. They bring so much to | |
| my district. So when you are setting up a program, how do you | |
| interface with the other people at the table? How do you let | |
| people know that WBC, which is so important on so many | |
| different levels, might bring a different flavor if we will use | |
| that term, a different angle to the entire equation? How do you | |
| all as a group communicate with each other? How do you present | |
| to the different communities that you address? Because you have | |
| different skillsets. You have different tools in your tool | |
| belts. We are impressed by that. How do you get that out to the | |
| people? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Well, I wish I could say there was some, you | |
| know, uniform book that we have on this. We have got 63 | |
| networks and I cannot remember how many chapters that Ken has. | |
| It is really a very individualized thing. It is the investment | |
| that our folks make to know about the SCORE chapter in their | |
| area or the Women's Business Center or the VBOC, which | |
| hopefully is not three states away. And be able to recognize | |
| our own faults. And that is the big thing. When we do our self- | |
| assessments and our needs assessments, it is very clear we can | |
| only cover so many things. So we need to lean on each other, | |
| and it may be the SBDC in Phoenix sending someone to a SCORE | |
| counselor in Las Vegas, Nevada, because they know that there is | |
| an expert there. But it has been a very organic sort of | |
| communication system for all of us. | |
| Mr. JOYCE. Do we need more than that? Do each one of your | |
| websites need to access each other so that someone, if they are | |
| not seeing the information that is best provided to their | |
| specific problems, that they can go back to WBC or they can go | |
| back to SCORE. Is that something that is worth considering? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Yeah, I think it would be fabulous if within our | |
| networks we could essentially search and say, okay, we need | |
| someone who is an expert on X. | |
| Mr. JOYCE. Military issues. And this is how you click on | |
| this tab and get to this point. That is my question for you. | |
| Ms. Sagester, do you think that that would work as well | |
| from your side? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. I think it is excellent. What we are in the | |
| process of doing is adding our resource partners, their links | |
| from our website directly to theirs so that when clients or | |
| prospective clients go to our website they can also under | |
| resources just click SCORE and go straight to either the | |
| national but right now local SCORE chapters. But again, you | |
| know, we wished, just so the Committee knows, that we want a | |
| VBOC in every state. That should be our goal, absolutely, | |
| because as Tee was saying, we hope that the VBOC is not three | |
| states away. Okay? But we, also at our center, one of the other | |
| ways that we reach out and use our resource partners and | |
| collaborate, is through bringing them in as subject matter | |
| expert's (SMEs) on our trainings. SCORE is vital. SBDCs are | |
| vital. Women's Business Centers. They come in as a subject | |
| matter expert and they will teach a module or whatever, and | |
| then they have full access to that audience as well. And so | |
| then the clients start to see us not as individual silos but | |
| they have an entire team that is on their side. | |
| Mr. JOYCE. And that entire team has to be commended. Thank | |
| you for being here today. I defer my time back. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman's time has expired. | |
| And now I recognize Ms. Houlahan from Pennsylvania for 5 | |
| minutes. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you to the | |
| Committee for coming. | |
| I am a woman. I am a veteran. I am an entrepreneur. And so | |
| I sort of fit into all of your buckets, and I really appreciate | |
| everything that you have done. I also really appreciated Mr. | |
| Yancey's testimony that talked a little bit about | |
| implementation of CRMs and ERPs. And you guys have hall been | |
| talking about data and the importance of measuring and metrics. | |
| My question is sort of turning the business back onto the | |
| business of your businesses. I appreciate that each of you are | |
| asking for different resources to be allocated to one another, | |
| but my question is has there been any form of collaboration-- | |
| this gets to the person's question before me--on use of systems | |
| to make sure that when you implement something like Salesforce | |
| that you maybe have a different instance across every one of | |
| your organizations and that you are kind of using best | |
| practices and the ways that you have learned to measure your | |
| successes amongst each other. And I think that there may be an | |
| enormous amount of overlap on each of your CRMs that you could | |
| maybe benefit from if that was something that you could fold | |
| into. So that is one of my questions. | |
| Mr. YANCEY. We have at SCORE collaborated with SBA and over | |
| the years in meetings with other resource partners to talk | |
| about what was appropriate to measure and how to measure it. We | |
| never really talked about systems that would talk to one | |
| another. When we do transmit data we are working on it being a | |
| very simple process. All of the resource partners would have | |
| access through our website to volunteers, to counselors, | |
| skills, whatever it happens to be. In terms of the CRM, that | |
| has been private only because there is data and other things. | |
| We would be happy to share what we have done, how we have done | |
| it, the architecture behind it, what we used for our initial | |
| business requirements analysis, et cetera. We will share that | |
| with the world. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. I just think there would be so much synergy | |
| and so much opportunity to save money---- | |
| Mr. YANCEY. There very well may be. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN.--between the four organizations. | |
| Mr. YANCEY. Very well may be. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. And that is sort of my first question. | |
| The other question is you touched a little bit on diversity | |
| and inclusion initiatives and I understand that that is really | |
| important. But are you guys as entrepreneurial kind of igniters | |
| also talking about corporate social responsibility initiatives | |
| at all? Has that become a thing that you also are talking to | |
| your entrepreneurs about? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. With regard to that I would say the answer is | |
| yes, but I would like to just back up a second on the previous. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. Of course. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. The Women's Business Center uses a different | |
| database than we do. We use Neossera. And it just so happens | |
| that the PTAC also uses Neossera. However, we are all | |
| individual as Mr. Yancey was saying. We are not able to share | |
| based on client privilege---- | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. It is more on architecture that I am asking | |
| about. It is kind of more on sort of best practices and metrics | |
| and measures that it just seems like there has got to be a | |
| whole lot going on there where we could save resources and you | |
| guys could be collaborating on that. And maybe there is some | |
| sort of an additional initiative that might be necessary to do | |
| that. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. And there may be some sort of initiative that | |
| the Committee could bring to light with regard to the SBA. And | |
| maybe that is a conversation that needs to be had and there | |
| could be a way to find that out. | |
| With regard to corporate responsibility, are you referring | |
| to, ma'am, such as social entrepreneurship? | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. Exactly. Exactly. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we were on | |
| the same page. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. Absolutely. There is not a business that we | |
| start that we do not talk about social entrepreneurship and how | |
| important it is to the business that the business owner and the | |
| business shows that they are committed to the community at | |
| large. And we have had great success. You know, at first the | |
| entrepreneur is usually kind of like what are you really | |
| talking about? So we had that conversation. And it is also | |
| about making meaning. Guy Kawasaki said if you start a business | |
| to make money and you do not make meaning, not only will you | |
| not make meaning, you will not make money. But if you make | |
| meaning, you will make meaning and you will make money. So it | |
| has got to not always be about you. It has got to be about that | |
| community oneness. | |
| Is there any obligation on the part of folks who access | |
| your resources that they consider that? You know, that they at | |
| least have gone through the training of it in terms of the | |
| resources that they are accessing so that they have the | |
| conversation? We are at least obliging them to sit and listen | |
| to the importance of meaning and money? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Well, at this point it is left up to the | |
| individual business advisor, but my team knows that we are a | |
| center that is going to promote social entrepreneurship. And we | |
| only have two. I had a third advisor just join us on a part- | |
| time basis, but that is a very important piece of what we bring | |
| to the table. Has there been any official across the board with | |
| all the VBOCs? There has not been but you gave me a great idea | |
| so that when we have our conference this year I am happy to | |
| lead the charge and offering a training within that area. | |
| Ms. HOULAHAN. Thank you. And I know I am out of time and I | |
| yield back to the Chairwoman. Thank you so much for your | |
| testimony. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentlelady's time has expired. | |
| And now we recognize Mr. Antonio Delgado from New York for | |
| 5 minutes. | |
| Mr. DELGADO. Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank each and every | |
| one of you for coming. And I am sorry if my question has | |
| already been asked. | |
| Last week for me was my first in-district work week. I | |
| spent a lot of time in my district, which is Update New York, | |
| Hudson Valley, Catskills area, actually one of the more rural | |
| districts in the country. And the district, at the town halls I | |
| came across a lot of individuals, self-employed business owners | |
| who had a lot of questions about economic growth and economic | |
| opportunity. I think we have about 24,000 self-employed | |
| individuals in New York 19. And so my question is, what can we | |
| do to help these self-employed business owners access the | |
| capital they need to expand and grow their businesses? So can | |
| you talk about any work that each of you do with community | |
| financial development institutions and small business | |
| investment companies that specifically help rural folks who are | |
| self-employed? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. I would like to address that by saying that | |
| education and training is one of the best areas to help them to | |
| understand their small business accounting because most of them | |
| have never had even a small business accounting class. They | |
| would not know a balance sheet from a scorecard. So, it is the | |
| education and training and the managerial training and | |
| experience that we bring to the table that helps them to see | |
| where they are and where they need to go to be able to be ready | |
| not only to launch their business, but it could be to grow. So | |
| they do not know what the five Cs are. They do not know what a | |
| bail team is. The training is really crucial. It is key, and we | |
| are constantly doing that with a program we call Business Plan | |
| Boot Camp when we help them with their market analysis and get | |
| started and prepare their plan. We also do twice a year a small | |
| business finance course, and that to me is the most vital | |
| piece, is educating these want-to-be startups as well as the | |
| entrepreneur and the small business owner that is growing. | |
| Mr. DELGADO. Can I just ask a follow up to that? When you | |
| say that there is a lack of education or training, is this | |
| something that has been consistent through your time in this | |
| space or have you seen a drop in the level of information or | |
| one's own ability to have the knowledge base to do what you are | |
| speaking of? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. I would say it has been consistent. | |
| Mr. DELGADO. Any reason why that would be the case? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Well, most people do not take accounting when | |
| they are in high school or college unless they are going to be | |
| a CPA or it is required or mandatory for their program. And | |
| some people do not even know how to balance a checkbook because | |
| hardly anyone writes checks anymore. So sometimes things are | |
| just the way they are. And so we try to help them to understand | |
| basic small business accounting before they can go on and | |
| really grasp the finance piece, because there is a learning | |
| curve there with how do I go from small business accounting to | |
| actually; how does that equate to me acquiring capital and | |
| financing my own business? So it is just if they have never | |
| done it, it is just something like if you tried to teach, if | |
| you said I want you to go be a gourmet chef, but you are | |
| someone who has not even ever boiled water before how would you | |
| do that? | |
| Mr. DELGADO. Right. I have boiled water. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. I have a feeling you have. | |
| Mr. DELGADO. Just one more follow up. The Boot Camp piece. | |
| Are there pieces of the curriculum that are designed or | |
| different depending on the types of community? So whether it is | |
| a rural community versus an urban community, are there | |
| different techniques or is it all just more of a sort of basic | |
| line understanding of startup as opposed to the needs you might | |
| have for particular geographies? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. That is a good question by the way. There is | |
| the basic and then we, for example, we teach basic QuickBooks, | |
| but then for those that have been in business for a little | |
| while, then they have graduated up and they need training on | |
| intermediate QuickBooks. That is one example is say I am in a | |
| rural area and I have not really had much access to resources. | |
| What is going to happen is we are going to try to help bring | |
| that client up to speed. It means they are going to get more | |
| attention and handheld. We hold a lot of hands at the VBOC. So | |
| a lot more attention one-on-one, not just the general classroom | |
| setting, until we get them to where they feel comfortable in | |
| starting and launching and growing their business. So, it does | |
| vary depending on their individual needs. | |
| Mr. DELGADO. Great. Thank you. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman---- | |
| Mr. DELGADO. I yield back my time. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. He yields back. | |
| I would like to go into a second round of questions. | |
| Well, I would like to share with you, and I know that you | |
| are all aware about these powerful numbers. In 2018, the State | |
| of the Woman-Owned Business Report shows how the number of | |
| woman-owned businesses went from 402,000 in 1972 to 12.3 | |
| million in 2018, and revenues increased from $8.1 billion to | |
| $1.8 trillion. Those are powerful numbers. And we all know that | |
| you serve close to one million businesses and we all know the | |
| return of that technical assistance. We have 29 to 30 million | |
| businesses, so there is so much potential if we could market | |
| those services and we could do better outreach. I do not know | |
| how can we tackle that because so many times people have come | |
| before our committee and said that they did not know about the | |
| existence of Women Business Development Centers or the Small | |
| Business Development Centers or Veterans Business Centers. And | |
| that question was asked before, but that is an area that we | |
| need to really think about, how can we expand our marketing | |
| tools to reach those underserved businesses that are not | |
| getting the kind of assistance that they need? | |
| Mr. Yancey? | |
| Mr. YANCEY. We have been very aggressive with what we have | |
| done in social media. And we had a social media audit in the | |
| last 4 or 5 months and it says that we outperform standard | |
| nonprofits by a factor of about 10. We even looked at small | |
| for-profit organizations and find that we outperform. There is | |
| a point that you get to, even in social media, where your | |
| ability to grow is dependent on your ability to invest. And the | |
| things that we need to do, we boost stories. We do buy ad words | |
| regularly. We work really hard to find partners that will carry | |
| our message for us that are active in the space. And you have | |
| seen the list. That is a really good way to do it. | |
| Having said that, marketing campaigns are expensive, and | |
| they have to be consistent. They have to be long-term in order | |
| to create awareness that people will act on. You know, in an | |
| environment like we are in with funding like we have, it is | |
| difficult. Our goal quickly is to be 1 degree of separation | |
| from our client. So if they ask anybody in the entrepreneurship | |
| arena, how do they get help, that person will think of SCORE. | |
| So we are working hard within that network to make sure there | |
| is awareness. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. So part of the mission, for example, | |
| of the Women Business Centers is to expand into underserved | |
| communities. What are you doing about that? | |
| Ms. HODGES. Well, I think the problem is even more dramatic | |
| than you characterized because you accounted only for the | |
| businesses that have already started. But what about the | |
| clients out there who want to start a business and do not know | |
| where to turn? And so I think it is a severe challenge. | |
| Reaching those socially and economically disadvantaged | |
| populations, it is part of our mission. And providing the | |
| services in these creative ways, crafting them specific to the | |
| communities in which they serve, help answer that question. And | |
| so each community is distinct. The way that we pull together | |
| the resources, the partners that are at the table here and | |
| others all come to bear. But I think it is worth repeating the | |
| fact that the access to capital is just a critical component. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. And in terms of new centers, could | |
| you explain the process that SBA uses to determine new centers, | |
| particularly in underserved communities? | |
| Ms. HODGES. No, Madam Chairwoman, I am not privy to their | |
| internal process to select locations. We are in conversations | |
| though about the future. I do not know what that looks like but | |
| I would hope that it would be strategic. I hope that we would | |
| not only be looking at communities where there is just a | |
| geographic absence of centers, but also where there is already | |
| service happening in a potential host organization with | |
| resources to serve. We should be able to entertain | |
| applications, I believe, for grants in those areas as well. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Rowe, any comments on that? | |
| Mr. ROWE. Well, just to follow on to what Ken says, every | |
| year, and this year it is March 20th, we have SBDC Day and we | |
| manage to trend up on Twitter to five, which is an amazing | |
| outreach. The problem is trying to stay up there without either | |
| being incredibly offensive or something is just almost | |
| impossible for us. And so I think one of the things that would | |
| be very helpful, something I have discussed with my membership, | |
| is it would be great if SBA would invest in public service | |
| announcements regarding small business development. You know, | |
| all of these resources, I went to the, Ad Council, for the | |
| television PSAs. Sadly, the buy-in is nearly $4 million. So | |
| that is out of reach for any of us. But collaboratively from | |
| the agency that would be a huge marketing tool. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. The gentleman is recognized, Mr. | |
| Chabot, for 5 minutes. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. I probably will not | |
| take up the whole 5 minutes, but I come around with a second | |
| question to you two folks, but not to you two folks. I said how | |
| great you were, Mr. Yancey, but let me ask you a question. | |
| How does SCORE go about recruiting the wide variety of | |
| mentors it takes to match the unique entrepreneurs that are out | |
| there? | |
| Mr. YANCEY. Recruiting is an activity these days that | |
| occurs not just at the chapter level but also at the national | |
| level. Our website is the number two source of new volunteers | |
| today. Our chapters look to make sure that they maintain an | |
| array of skills at the chapter that meets the needs of the | |
| community, and today, we are very focused on our need to be | |
| more diverse and better at serving all of the communities where | |
| we are located. I think our challenge, and Ms. Velazquez has | |
| been kind enough to point it out over the years, we still need | |
| to do more to better reflect the communities that we serve from | |
| a race/ethnicity standpoint. And we are committed to that and | |
| we are working on that and we have made progress. And not good | |
| enough but we are working at it. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. All right. Thank you very much. | |
| And then finally, Ms. Sagester, my colleague from Ohio, Mr. | |
| Balderson got into this somewhat, but I will get a little | |
| different angle. Veterans often possess a unique skillset that | |
| they have acquired during their time in the military. In what | |
| ways do VBOCs tailor their curriculum to best utilize those | |
| skills and make sure we are able to get those veterans to | |
| either go through your program either to start up a company | |
| themselves or to become employed by one of them or to grow an | |
| existing company or whatever? | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Well, one of the ways, the best way that we | |
| have found to do that is that one-on-one initial assessment. We | |
| do a one-on-one initial assessment where we are looking at the | |
| service member's background. Like, what as their MOS when they | |
| were in-service. In other words, their military operation | |
| specialty. What experience do they have that is on the civilian | |
| side of their life? What experiences do they have? And then as | |
| well as like what goals they want to achieve, because we have | |
| to be able to marry where they are and what experience they | |
| have and talents to what their goal is. So that again, is part | |
| of where the magic happens is that one-on-one, face to face. We | |
| are sitting down, we are rolling our sleeves up, and we are | |
| starting from scratch and we are going to make this happen. So | |
| that assessment is crucial for that first step as to where we | |
| take the client to the second step. And Boots to Business | |
| oftentimes is the first step because they are transitioning | |
| out. And that is the first time we touch them. We call it a | |
| touch. We first meet them. And then they are invited for that | |
| assessment, the initial one-on-one and we go from there. But | |
| that is how we assess. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. | |
| And I will just conclude by I had somebody in my office. | |
| This was some years back. They were from, I believe, the | |
| American Trucking Institute, and they were talking about how we | |
| had a lot of our young men and women were coming back from | |
| Afghanistan, Iraq, et cetera, and they were driving multi-ton | |
| vehicles over there but at that point the unemployment rate was | |
| not as low as it is now, so it is tougher to get jobs. And | |
| their point was that a lot of these folk were underage to get | |
| their chauffeurs driving to drive the big rigs, so we needed to | |
| do something to change it. I know we were looking into that for | |
| a long time but some of those folks, as you know, they are not | |
| necessarily just employees of a trucking company, but they can | |
| become entrepreneurs, you know, and get a loan and own one of | |
| these big rigs and go around. A lot of them are independent | |
| agents. So I think we need to take all those things into | |
| consideration. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Absolutely. And those truckers make great | |
| logistician's. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. Right. | |
| Ms. SAGESTER. Small businesses. They really do. But you are | |
| exactly right. | |
| Mr. CHABOT. And at that time I think they said that there | |
| was an underserved need of about 100,000 drivers all over the | |
| country so we need to do a better job to get all those folks | |
| together. | |
| And thank again all of you. I thought this was a very good | |
| hearing. So I yield back. | |
| Chairwoman VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. | |
| Let me take this opportunity to thank all of you. Your | |
| insightful information and recommendations have been very | |
| important and enlightening. | |
| Entrepreneurship is the backbone of our nation's economy | |
| helping individuals pursue their dreams and become financially | |
| self-sufficient. SBA's counseling and training programs are | |
| critical to their success. This hearing has been very | |
| informative and your insights are valuable. As we move forward | |
| with legislation to modernize these programs, it will be | |
| important to ensure that you have the resources you need to | |
| provide the counseling and training to America's small | |
| business. | |
| I would ask unanimous consent that members have 5 | |
| legislative days to submit statements and supporting materials | |
| for the record. | |
| Without objection, so ordered. | |
| And if there is no further business to come before the | |
| committee, we are adjourned. Thank you. | |
| [Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] | |
| A P P E N D I X | |
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