CNNMoney.com:
Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Karen Mills has been chosen by President-elect Obama to head the Small Business Administration.
Mills is currently president of MMP Group in Brunswick, Maine. She, with two other partners, founded Solera Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm. Her appointment will be subject to confirmation by the Senate.
At a press conference introducing Mills and several other members of his economic team, Obama emphasized that to get the economy back on track, it is essential to strengthen the nation’s Main Street backbone, its small businesses.
House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia M. Velázquez, D-N.Y., was quick to praise the nomination.
“President-elect Obama’s decision to name an SBA administrator so early in the transition is a good sign for small businesses,” she said. “This appointment shows that his economic team recognizes the key role that small firms play in job creation and the need to take quick steps to revitalize the agency’s role in spurring growth.”
Velázquez emphasized that Mills has her work cut out for her. “Through budgets cuts and mismanagement during the last eight years, the SBA has become nothing more than a shell of the agency it used to be,” she said, adding that it is essential for the new SBA leader to reverse this course.
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