District Director Letter:

Thanks for stopping by the SBA and Arkansas Community Bankers Association partnership page. In this site you will find many useful contacts and information to help you and your small business borrowers navigate the valuable resources available during your journey of opening a small business or expanding your current business operations. As for our lenders, this is a great resource to find out more about SBA products, and how to bring them to your community to assist in community development across the state.

 Nationally, the agency has done fantastic work to reorganize the programs and services to be more effective and efficient for our small business stakeholders across the country. The SBA helps make the American dream of small business ownership a reality. We are the only federal agency dedicated to helping our 30 million small businesses start, grow, expand, and recover after a disaster.

The Arkansas District Office works with an extensive network of business advisers and lenders to help Arkansas’ 247,000 small businesses at every stage of development. Across Arkansas in Fiscal Year 2019, we empowered the state’s small businesses to:

• Find an ally, advocate or mentor via our four SBA Resource Partners, which includes SCORE, Small Business Development Centers, Arkansas Women’s Business Center, and the Veterans Business Outreach Center, all powered by the SBA.  We also work closely with the Arkansas Procurement Technology Assistance Center.
• Access over $163.9 million in SBA financing in FY19 using 30 local banks, third party lenders, community-based lenders, and microlenders. These business borrowers retained and hired nearly 3,949 employees, bought needed equipment, and built/renovated facilities.

We work tirelessly to ensure our local small businesses across the state of Arkansas have the resources necessary to start, grow, and succeed. We want your interactions with us to be value-driven. We are extremely proud of the work we do and will continue to work aggressively to provide greater opportunity across the state to make Arkansas a better place for Arkansans to start, grow, and build a robust small business community.

 Sincerely,

Edward Haddock

Stay up to date on SBA events near you by following us on Twitter @SBA_Arkansas or register for e-mail updates at sba.gov/updates and use our Small Business Resource Guide to power your dream of starting, growing, or expanding a small business here in Arkansas.

Small Business Administration Arkansas District
2120 Riverfront Drive, Suite 250
Little Rock, Arkansas 72202
501-324-7379
501-324-7394 FAX
SBA.GOV/AR

Herbert Lawrence, Lender Relations Specialist
501-324-7379 X 297

Richard Duda, Lender Relations Specialist
501-324-7379 X 239

Edward Haddock , District Director
501-324-7379 X 225

What your colleagues are saying about the SBA experience....

David Melchert, SBA Loan Manager

“Arvest Bank believes small businesses are the backbone of many of our communities, and therefore does everything it can to help those businesses. Being an SBA-preferred lender is a vital part of that effort, and allows Arvest to provide financing for so many purposes – from real estate purchases to business expansion to obtaining permanent and/or revolving working capital – and most things in between. Simply put, the value Arvest places on leveraging SBA programs as part of its commercial lending practices can be found in the fact Arvest is consistently the No. 1 SBA lender in all of Arkansas.”

Martha Londagin, Vice President

“Without the Small Business Administration loan guarantee program, many of our small business loans would have never been possible under Legacy National Bank’s current loan policy.  The SBA loan product not only lessens the risk to the bank justifying its decision to grant a loan request, but allows longer terms for repayment to give the business time to reap the benefits from its new income streams.”

Corky Strode, Regional SBA Banker

“Simmons ability to use the SBA 7(a) guaranty loan program, especially for new businesses, mitigates the risks inherent in a start-up, the limited business collateral available, and start-up challenges creating a win-win situation that could not have been possible with the bank’s in-house loan options.   The ability to use the SBA guaranty program for these entrepreneurs also results in a great relationship for Simmons Bank, through new deposit accounts, utilizing the bank’s treasury management services, and insurance products, overall providing great cross-selling opportunities for the bank.”

Blake Fletcher, Senior Vice President

“Without the Small Business Administration loan guarantee program, many business acquisition loans would not be possible for the bank, especially where intangibles are involved.   The SBA’s 7(a) Guaranty Loan program not only mitigates the risk to the bank, offers longer terms for repayment to keep cash flow strong and resulted in a relationship that has allowed the bank to make subsequent loans to borrowers.  This is especially true for business acquisitions because it allows the bank to fund “goodwill”,  The SBA program was absolutely essential to turning this into a win-win for the bank and the small business owners.”

Archived training webcasts from the Small Business Administration - Arkansas Region are available exclusively through the ACB website at no cost and at your convenience.  Clicking on the webcast of your choice from the list below takes you to that webcast.