From the White House press office:

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts

President Obama said, “I’m grateful that such experienced and dedicated individuals have joined my administration at a time when our nation faces great challenges. Their deep commitment to their individual areas of work gives me confidence that they will help us put America back on a path to prosperity and security. I thank them for their service and look forward to working alongside them in the years to come.”

Winslow Sargeant, Nominee for Chief Counsel for Advocacy, Small Business Administration
Winslow Sargeant has been a Managing Director in the technology practice at Venture Investors since 2006. From 2001 to 2005, he was the program manager for the Small Business Innovations Research (SBIR) Program in Electronics, a new office in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Engineering Directorate. Previously, Sargeant co-founded Aanetcom, a fabless semiconductor chip startup company with seed funding from Cisco systems which was acquired by PMC-Sierra. Prior to Aanetcom, he held senior engineering positions at Lucent, AT&T Bell Labs and IBM. Sargeant currently serves on the Boards of Silatronix and Pattern Insight. He also serves as a Director of the University of Wisconsin Foundation and is the Vice Chairman of the UW-Madison Astronomy Board of Visitors. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of WiCell, WiSys and the Waisman Center. Sargeant is a Trustee for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and also serves on Purdue University Discovery Center’s Research Board of Visitors. He is a member of the Advisory Board of NSF’s Industrial Innovation and Partnership Division (NSF/SBIR). Winslow received the inaugural 2002 Wisconsin Distinguished Young Alumni Award and was a 2003 Outstanding Engineering Alumni Awardee from Northeastern University. He received a B.S. from Northeastern University, an M.S. from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all in Electrical Engineering.  Sargeant is also a Kauffman Fellow – Class 11.

            This week I was thrilled to attend SBA’s National Small Business Week here in Washington, DC, where entrepreneurs from all over the country gathered to be recognized as top small businesses from their state.  These winners attended a number of interesting forums, luncheons and other events designed to highlight the many small businesses in attendance as well as provide them with additional tools and useful information. 

            My favorite?? The forum on Social Media where distinguished speakers from Google & Facebook (to name a few), encouraged small business owners to make use of the social networks on the internet to help support and grow their business.  It was an interesting discussion that compared those who are not yet “online” to cavemen in the stone age that remained opposed to fire once it was invented, despite the clear advantages of its use! Great analogy!

            There were many highlights of the conference, including Administrator Karen Mills’ Keynote address where she outlined her plan for the SBA during this administration.  Excitement was in the air as she described SBA’s new ARC loan program designed to bridge troubled times for struggling small businesses, as well as her plans for revitalizing the agency.  Another special event was the Phoenix Awards luncheon where small business owners, a government official and a quick thinking mom were honored for their incredible feats of volunteerism and community spirit during natural disasters in their areas. Their stories of heroism and devotion to their community were very moving and inspiring.

            Of course most, if not all, of the winners would say the highlight for them was meeting President Obama in the East Room of the White House!!  Unfortunately I was not able to attend this part of the conference, but when the buses returned from the White House, happy small business winners from all over the country poured off the buses with big grins on their faces and full memory cards in their cameras.

            Small Business Week ended with a National Awards Dinner honoring the state small business winners.  Excitement & anticipation were in the air as the National Small Business Person of the Year was finally announced at the end of the evening. Jeanna Sellmeyer from Oklahoma received hugs from her family and friends as she rose to receive her award from Administrator Mills.  Her story and her struggle to grow her business, despite challenging times both personally and professionally, had the crowd on their feet as she crossed the stage.  What a great night & an exciting culmination to a very successful Small Business Week.

– Claudia Rogers, Assistant Advocate

            Last week Advocacy released our Quarterly Indicators for the first quarter of 2009.  The economy continued its downward slide in January, February, and March of this year.  The economic recession deepened; real gross domestic product fell by an annualized 6.1 percent.  One bright spot in the first quarter was positive growth in consumer spending.  Other GDP components were down.  Real gross private fixed investment fell 38 percent to $1.44 trillion, mostly from a drop in nonresidential construction.  Exports, imports, and industrial production also declined sharply.

            For those interested in trend analysis, Advocacy’s Quarterly Indicators stretch back to the first quarter of 2004.

– John McDowell