Karen Mills
Karen Mills
Karen Gordon Millsserved as the 23rd Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama on December 19, 2008, confirmed unanimously by the Senate on April 2, 2009, and sworn in on April 6, 2009. During her tenure, her office was elevated to the rank of Cabinet-level officer, expanding her power on policy decisions and granting her access to cabinet meetings. On February 11, 2013 she announced resignation as Administrator and left the post on...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth14 September 1953
CountryUnited States of America
We've gotten tremendous support. Everybody now understands how critical it is to help small businesses get out of this recession and into recovery.
We spend a great deal of our energy making sure that small businesses have help in navigating to the outcomes that they want.
If you want to have prosperity here, we really have to see our small businesses able to grow and compete around the world.
We have to keep the momentum going in the economy. And we have to make sure that we give small businesses as much cash and liquidity as possible so they have the confidence to hire that next worker.
Our economy creates and loses jobs every quarter in the millions. But of the net new jobs, the jobs come from small businesses: both small businesses on Main Street and many of the net new jobs come from high growth, high impact businesses that are located all across the country.
One of the most important tools we have at the Small Business Administration (SBA) to reach high growth entrepreneurs is the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.
My family was in two businesses - they were in the textile business, and they were in the candy business. The conversations around the dinner table were all about the factory floor and how many machines were running and what was happening in the business. I grew up very engaged in manufacturing and as part of a family business.
I haven't checked this out yet, but one of our guys told me we have a counselor within 45 minutes to an hour of most small businesses in this country. That's really powerful. I call it our bone structure.
We see entrepreneurship and small businesses and supply chains as a critical part of the economic growth and competitiveness agenda.
We are not going to be the agency where large businesses can masquerade as a small business and get a contract. We are closing down on fraud, waste and abuse.
As you probably know, half of the people who work in this country work for small businesses. And it's more than that, because two out of every three net new jobs come from small business. So we mean it when we talk about small business being the engine for the economy.
As I've traveled around the country, it has surprised me how many times I've heard people in small businesses use that word 'saved.' I believe many small businesses would not have had access to credit and would not have survived without the $50 billion that we were able to put into the market.
Small businesses pay 18 percent more than big businesses for health care, the same health care, just because they're small and they have too small a pool of risk.
Health care is the No. 1 concern of small businesses and the status quo is untenable.