On the front lines of small business loan program
There was the owner
COLUMBUS — of a food safety company who was hours away from telling some of his employees they were out of a job.
There was the owner of a time-keeping company whose business was headed for collapse, because there were no more high school sporting events.
And there was the crying restaurant owner with 50 employees at two locations who likely would have closed both.
They are among the thousands of small business owners who for weeks were keeping Bryan Brzozowski up at night.
They are the people he and his Columbus-based team at J.P. Morgan Chase helped secure loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s relief program. Saving them from financial hardship became Brzozowski’s obsession. He feared letting someone down.
And no matter what the circumstances, he often would blame himself if someone didn’t qualify for a loan. His wife at one point even hid his phone to save him from himself.
“These were life-saving loans, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher,” said Brzozowski, a business relationship manager for Chase. “I was an emotional wreck, but it wasn’t about me. It was a rush to the finish line to make sure their businesses stayed alive and the people they employed came out of this with their jobs.”
The PPP was established by Congress in March after many businesses were ordered to shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. It was designed to allow businesses to keep making payroll for an eight-week period.
But the loan process was chaos for thousands of businesses and bankers like Brzozowski, who scrambled to collect the documentation needed to apply and keep up with the rules that seemed to change daily. The system went live April 3, and the first $350 billion was gone in a days, shutting out thousands of businesses.
Three weeks later, Congress designated an additional $310 billion for the program, setting off another race to secure loans for desperate businesses.
Ohio and other states have begun to reopen their economies, but over 36 million people in the U.S. have lost their jobs since the pandemic began.
Jenny Saunders, president of FCBank in Worthington, said she and her staff helped hundreds of businesses stay afloat by securing PPP loans.
She had one new client who owned 19 restaurants and needed $1 million to continue paying her employees. She remembers the business owner’s emotional plea for help on a Friday. Then they couldn’t get into the system to file the loan application on Saturday. They were helping other clients on Sunday. Then on Monday the application was filed and the restaurant owner was approved the same day for the loan. About 10 days later, the owner received the money.
Chase estimates it will fund over $30 billion under the PPP for over 250,000 loans, helping at least 3 million employees.
In Ohio, Chase has helped 7,100 businesses at an average loan size of $159,000 totaling about $1.1 billion.
Much of the PPP chaos has subsided, but Brzozowski isn’t done.
“It was an emotional roller coaster for all of us, but I’m proud of how many people Chase was able to push across the finish line,” he said.
Brzozowski’s wife even gave him his phone back.