Indianz.Com > News > Leader of Small Business Administration heads to Indian Country
Leader of Small Business Administration heads to Indian Country
Monday, February 21, 2022
Indianz.Com
The Navajo Nation is hosting the leader of the Small Business Administration for her first visit to the largest reservation in the United States.
Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman will meet with Navajo Nation
President Jonathan Nez and other tribal officials on Tuesday.
The visit is taking place in Window Rock, Arizona, which serves as the tribe’s capital.
According to the SBA, Guzman is slated to discuss how the American Rescue Plan Act, as well as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, can benefit Indian Country. The two laws, which were enacted by Congress as part of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, include more than $33 billion in investments for tribes and their communities.
The SBA includes an Office of Native American Affairs at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Jackson Brossy, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, came on board as the Assistant Administrator for the Native program in December. “Supporting Native-owned small businesses is vital to our shared economic future,” Brossy said on the release of the SBA’s tribal consultation policy. “And that begins with addressing the systemic inequities that continue to plague Indigenous peoples.” Last March, Guzman was confirmed as the 27th administrator of the SBA. Since coming on board, the agency has offered about $700 million in support to Native businesses and Native entrepreneurs, according to progress report published on January 20, on the anniversary of Biden’s inauguration as president. Additionally, the SBA recently relaunched the Council on Underserved Communities to advise the SBA on ways to help socially, economically and geographically disadvantaged small business owners. The committee includes Veronica Maturino, the CEO of Our Native American Business Network; and Chris James, the president and CEO of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development. The agency is primarily known for its work in the federal contracting arena. The 8(a) program has been designed to help tribal- and Native-owned businesses secure contracts with the U.S. government. “SBA is committed and positioned to really support Native-owned businesses,” Guzman said during a policy panel on workforce and economic development at the White House Tribal Nations Summit last November. “Under the president’s vision of trying to ensure that our ecosystems are built up in an equitable manner, the SBA is trying to design programs — at the onset — with all of our entrepreneurs in mind.”This week, I signed the SBA Tribal Consultation Policy of 2022, which directs the SBA’s coordination with Tribal governments and ensures small businesses from Tribal communities can equitably benefit from government resources. pic.twitter.com/g3XHHlLcxB
— Isabel Casillas Guzman (@SBAIsabel) January 28, 2022
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