A NEW CHAPTER OF LEADERSHIP
for America’s Small Businesses
Long before Kelly Loeffler entered a boardroom or stepped into public service, her understanding of business was being formed on a five-generation family farm, where work did not stop because the day was long and responsibility could not simply be handed to someone else. “My goals as a young person to build a career in business started on my family’s now five- generation family farm,” Loeffler says. “And I saw firsthand the grit, the determination and the reward that comes from that hard work of building a small business and the generational impact that it has.” She watched her parents work every day. She saw what it meant when a family’s livelihood depended on what they could produce, sustain and build over time.
“I saw not only what that small business meant to that family, but to the community.” “And so, it really instilled in me a deep sense of respect for our business owners, those who build businesses, and then those who are really building our local communities through small business.”
For Loeffler, that is not simply an economic argument. It is something more fundamental.
“And that’s why small business makes up 99% of all businesses in this country,” she says. “Because that is the American dream.” Today, as Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Loeffler is leading an agency whose purpose reaches directly into those communities, even if many entrepreneurs do not fully understand the breadth of what it offers.
“As small business owners know, there are no days off. There’s no paid leave.”
During high school and college, Loeffler waitressed and worked for small businesses along the main streets of rural America. Those experiences broadened what she had already witnessed at home. She began to understand that a small business could carry far more than the ambitions of the person whose name was on the door. It could support a family, create livelihoods and become part of the fabric of an entire community.
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