Maria Contreras-Sweet
Title: Administrator, Small Business Administration
Age: 58
Experience: More than 20 years
In a sense, Maria Contreras-Sweet’s grandmother was right. Contreras-Sweet, who immigrated to the United States with her family at five years old, recalled her grandmother telling her that although she came from a family of migrant workers, in America she could aspire to work in an office – maybe even as a secretary. Since then, she’s cultivated an impressive resume, spanning the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Contreras-Sweet founded ProAmérica Bank, California’s first Latino-formed commercial bank in more than 35 years, and she later held a state cabinet position as secretary of business for the Transportation and Housing Agency. This spring, President Barack Obama appointed her administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Q: Do you remember your first encounter with the SBA?
A: Of course, I’d always known about the SBA and I’d heard about what I think are their premier products, the 7(a) and the 504. Generally speaking, I tracked what they were doing in a very loose way, but I didn’t really start getting deep into what the SBA was about until I started to form my bank, and then I wanted to become a preferred lender as quickly as I could. I wanted to make sure we were capturing a target market that I felt had been underserved.
Q: Do you have any favorite SBA success stories?
A: There are so many, but in one instance, there was a friend who’d come into the institution, she was a psychologist, and she was lamenting that she had been hassled a little bit by her landlord, so I suggested buying him out. It was the farthest thing from her mind. She’s a really great doctor and really cares about her patients.
But essentially we ran the numbers and thought under the SBA, we could do this. When I went back to visit her, we were cutting the ribbon on her building; it was remarkable. She said that we’d changed her life.
The easing of the payment, the lengthening of the terms, allowed her to reach not only the clients that came in to see her, but now a larger audience. And there were just stories after stories she shared with me, about how she was able to transform lives. Her focus was women who were battered or in abusive relationships.
Sometimes we forget. They’re just numbers to us. When you actually dig down a little deeper and you learn about the stories and the impact of those folks and what we’re doing, it really reminds you of why we get into banking.
Q: Why did you want to head up the SBA?
A: When I was in public service as California’s secretary for business, transportation and housing, one of the things I tried to do was create jobs, to the extent that I could create jobs domestically. For instance [when I was working on the the east band of the San Francisco bridge], I’d go out into primary, secondary and tertiary markets to talk to people about the work that we were letting out, to make sure that we were creating local jobs. I debundled the work, so instead of letting out a billion-dollar project, I’d de-bundle it in chunks, and we’d let out a project of about $200 million.
In discussing that with the president, I thought, I am working each and every day with this wonderful but little financial institution, barely getting out of the de novo stage; how many loans can I possibly do? The most rewarding thing would be if I could take that to the national level, bringing that commitment and passion with the wherewithal of the federal government, that would be a dream come true. It was sort of like Christmas Day when I arrived at the SBA, to open up the office with all the wonderful products, programs and services available for our community and for small businesses across the country.
Maria Contreras-Sweet’s Top Five Initiatives:
- Filling the gaps in the credit markets.
- Improving small businesses access to supply chains and contracting opportunities.
- Making sure that we are good stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars.
- Focusing on customer service and making it easier for people to interact with the SBA.
- Having an inclusive view of entrepreneurship, so that everyone of all creeds and colors have access to our services.
