WINNEBAGO, Neb. – On Wednesday, September 25, Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the voice in President Biden’s Cabinet for America’s more than 34 million small businesses, traveled to Nebraska to mark Hispanic Heritage Month and meet with Tribal leaders to discuss the SBA’s efforts to support entrepreneurship and economic development in Native American communities.
In the morning, Administrator Guzman celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month in Omaha with a visit to Elevator Co-Warehousing + Community, a local Latino- and woman-owned small business that provides office and warehouse spaces for local small businesses. Founded in 2022, Elevator is part of the historic small business boom being fueled by women and people of color. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the country has seen a record 19.4 million new business applications – including over 75,000 in Nebraska alone.
Later, she traveled to Macy to visit Nebraska Indian Community College to meet with an inaugural grantee of the SBA’s Tribal College Small Business Achievement (TCSBA) program and learn how the TCSBA grant is helping empower student entrepreneurs and local small businesses.
Administrator Guzman then traveled to Winnebago, Nebraska, where she met with the Winnebago Tribal Council as well as Ho-Chunk, Inc., the Winnebago Tribally-owned corporation that participates in the SBA’s 8(a) Business Development Program and has reinvested more than $44 million in dividends in the Tribe over a three-decade time period, in which per-capita income of Tribal members has grown by 78 percent. Administrator took a tour of Ho-Chunk Village and gave remarks at Ho-Chunk, Inc.’s 30th Anniversary Celebration.
Media interested in scheduling an interview with Administrator Guzman should contact Rebecca Galanti at rebecca.galanti@sba.gov.
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