Karen Mills Quotes

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Karen Mills

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : September 14, 1953

We are very much engaged across the government, very much engaged in streamlining and simplifying our activities with borrowers and lenders, because that saves time and saves costs and we believe we can do that while maintaining the same or increased levels of oversight and risk management.

Karen Mills

Small businesses are really the engine in the economy.

Karen Mills

It's not government that creates jobs; it's small business. Our job is to make sure they have the access to capital, the access to contracting opportunities, and the help, advice and mentoring that they need to go out and be successful.

Karen Mills

In October 2008, when the credit crunch hit, small businesses were really crushed by the lack of capital.

Karen Mills

I grew up in a family business... that really has provided the core of my belief in American small business, and in America's ability to grow and operate important businesses that can compete and be successful.

Karen Mills

As I've traveled around the country, it has surprised me how many times I've heard people in small businesses use that word 'saved.' I believe many small businesses would not have had access to credit and would not have survived without the $50 billion that we were able to put into the market.

Karen Mills

We really accomplished what we set out to do with the Recovery Act programs, which was to fill the lending gap created by the crisis.

Karen Mills

We spend a great deal of our energy making sure that small businesses have help in navigating to the outcomes that they want.

Karen Mills

The morale when I came in was not the best. It was because the agency had not been valued.

Karen Mills

We see entrepreneurship and small businesses and supply chains as a critical part of the economic growth and competitiveness agenda.

Karen Mills

One of the most important things we hear is the S.B.A. needs to be ubiquitous. We do all these things, but people still don't know.

Karen Mills

I think we've learned that the S.B.A. plays a critical role in providing access and opportunity when the market is not providing that access. We help banks get that money out into the hands of important and viable businesses, particularly those owned by minorities, women, immigrants and veterans.

Karen Mills

Among our responsibilities is to make sure that 23 percent of all government contracts go to small businesses. That's about $150 billion annually, from all the government agencies.

Karen Mills

As you probably know, half of the people who work in this country work for small businesses. And it's more than that, because two out of every three net new jobs come from small business. So we mean it when we talk about small business being the engine for the economy.

Karen Mills

This is not a zero-sum game. We know that if we provide access and education, particularly where there are gaps in the market, we will create more jobs, we will create more growth, and we will create more activity in the U.S. market, which will be good for our economy.

Karen Mills

Small businesses have told us that having cash in their pocket is one of the primary things that they need.

Karen Mills

Small businesses want things streamlined, and one of the great successes we're having is less paperwork, faster turnaround times.

Karen Mills

Small businesses pay 18 percent more than big businesses for health care, the same health care, just because they're small and they have too small a pool of risk.

Karen Mills

I recently had the opportunity to participate in Inc.'s first-ever 'Hire Power Awards' event in Washington, D.C. The event was a testament to the power of American entrepreneurship and the role that it plays in driving job creation and innovation in a wide array of industries.

Karen Mills

One of the most important tools we have at the Small Business Administration (SBA) to reach high growth entrepreneurs is the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.

Karen Mills