SBA Administrator visits Northwest Arkansas to listen to business owners, tour region

Isabella Casillas Guzman, administrator for the Small Business Administration (SBA), visited Northwest Arkansas on Friday (Aug. 13) to meet with small business owners as part of a nationwide tour highlighting recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of COVID vaccinations.

Guzman listened to challenges area business leaders have faced amid the pandemic and spoke about the SBA’s various COVID relief aid programs during a roundtable discussion at Mundo-Tech in Rogers. The aerospace tubing fabricator has nearly completed a 15,000-square-foot expansion project that began in 2019, and Guzman toured the progress before the discussion.

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, hosted her for the visit that included afternoon meetings with restaurant business leaders, venue operators and a tour of TheatreSquared in Fayetteville.

“As an appropriator, it is my goal in life to make sure that we can set aside a lot of the issues that divide us politically and concentrate on things that actually drive the economy, in this case for small businesses,” Womack said. ‘I, a lot of times, take my Congress hat off and put my mayor’s hat back on because at some point in time this government of ours has to work.”

Guzman said she plans to take back to Washington what she learns from area business owners and develop policies to continue to support small businesses.

She said the SBA has provided more than $3.1 billion in COVID relief aid to Arkansas businesses. Through the SBA’s relief aid programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), Economic Injury Disaster Loans, Shuttered Venue Operators Grant and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, more than $1 trillion has been distributed for U.S. small businesses. Billions of dollars in relief aid remains available for small businesses, Guzman said. The total number of Arkansas businesses that have received aid is uncertain because some could have received aid through multiple programs, but 43,699 have received PPP loans, 43,513 have received the Economic Industry Disaster Loans and 577 have received money from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grants and Restaurant Revitalization Fund.

“We’ve seen our businesses pivot and adapt in dramatic ways, adopting technology, coming together as a community to support each other,” Guzman said. “We see members of the community recognizing how critical our small businesses are, shopping local, supporting local restaurants in our communities at large. What’s really key for us to remember is that we still need to fight this pandemic with shots in arms and the support that we’ve given through the American Rescue Plan. Our healthcare system is really critical to ensure our businesses can reopen safely with more people safely vaccinated.”

Mary Beth Brooks, director of the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center at the University of Arkansas, said restaurants are struggling as they face new virus cases and challenges to hire staff. She noted that some restaurants are offering $500 sign-on bonuses.

Since the start of the pandemic, the center has more than doubled its employees to 15, and between January and July of this year, it has had 730 new clients. It’s helped 35 new businesses start this year.

Raymond Burns, president and CEO of the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, explained how the workforce is fragile and his biggest concern is the hospitality industry. He added that it isn’t going to recover this year.

Womack spoke about the importance of the industry in Northwest Arkansas and how it’s factored into the area’s economic growth over the past 15 to 20 years. He explained its significance in that large companies and organizations, such as Walmart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt Transport Services and the University of Arkansas, bring people to the area and have contributed to industry demand.

“Restaurants and hospitality services, conventions centers, those kinds of things are critically important to the overall economic vitality of our area,” he said. “That is probably the segment of our economic vitality that has been impacted the most and likely has the most difficulty in recovering from it. So the work the SBA does in order to help these small businesses… the resources they allocate are fundamental to our ability to save these businesses from economic ruin and help bring them back so as … the pandemic wanes — and we hope it does soon if we can get shots in arms and people best prepared to deal with the pandemic — and the demand for these services … as they begin to percolate again, we want them to be able to do it in the best possible way and put these issues behind us.

“Some of the answers to the challenges that face our country are right here,” Womack added. “The entrepreneurial spirit on which Northwest Arkansas was founded and continues to grow and the tremendous opportunities that we have demonstrated through this entrepreneurial spirit that can help an economy thrive and be able to build, grow, develop and help businesses like Mundo-Tech and others expand — I wanted Administrator Guzman to see that because I believe if we can duplicate this case in this area around the country there’s no telling what our country can become as it comes out of this pandemic.”

Mundo Harbaugh, president and CEO of Mundo-Tech, said the business received SBA aid in 2020 and is eligible for a second round of funding this year. Harbaugh said the company received SBA aid after 9/11 when it was more dependent on the business of the commercial airline industry. After that, the company diversified into military aircraft. Its business comprises 60% military and 40% commercial aviation. The company has 48 employees and is looking to hire. Harbaugh noted the company, which was deemed essential at the onset of the pandemic, has not had to lay off any employees through the help of the PPP.