Stansbury, small businesses recognize 70 years of SBA
Sandwiched between local restaurants, antique stores and other small businesses, local leaders gathered at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday to recognize the 70th anniversary of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
“We’re here on Fourth Street. And you can see the ways in which Barelas and this corridor in our city have been transformed by small businesses,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., who attended the event. “This has long been a mecca for local businesses.”
John Garcia, the district director of the SBA in New Mexico, said small businesses throughout the state have adapted to a double whammy of crisis in recent years.
In a state where many of the 162,000 small businesses work in the tourism or agricultural-based industries, Garcia said the COVID-19 pandemic and then last summer’s wildfires each challenged local businesses. Despite that, there are actually about 5,000 more small businesses throughout the state now than there were before the pandemic.
“It was a crisis that presented challenges and people recognize those challenges and adapted, and they looked at new opportunities,” Garcia said. “If you didn’t adapt, you got left behind.”
Stansbury called the growth in the number of businesses throughout the state a major achievement and why she recognized an anniversary for the association that assists those entrepreneurs.
Garcia said the organization helps businesses and entrepreneurs secure grants or loans, provides technical consulting and assistance obtaining contractors. SBA doesn’t charge businesses for its services, he said.
“What we do is help small businesses get a fair share of those federal contracts,” he said. “Our function is keep the backbone of our economy going, which is small business.”