SBA takes you to the source.

• Author: TAYLOR, MIKE
• Position: Small Business Administration - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

IF YOU ATTENDED THE SMALL Business Administration's resource fair at the Denver Public Library in August, you can stop reading now and give yourself a pat on the back.

You've recognized one of the great untapped financial resources available to fledgling business owners. You and about 300 other attendees know there's ample help - and hope - for Colorado entrepreneurs looking for funding, guidance, or just someone to talk to about planning, building and maintaining a business.

With 44 booths manned by lenders and business counselors, Small Business Resource Fair 2001 covered just about every aspect and every level of business development. Of course, that almost always gets down to money - how and where to get it, and on what terms.

The range of financing open to discussion at this fair was evident from the diversity of panels that drew standing-room-only audiences - one conducted by a microlender, another by a bank, and a third by a venture-capital firm. Jeannette DeHerrera, the event coordinator for SBA, says bringing lenders and business people together offered attendees something beyond the convenience of one-stop information gathering.

It gave them comfort.

"A lot of people are intimidated by banks," DeHerrera said. "The resource fair is a comfortable environment; you can ask questions without feeling stupid. You get to know lenders and get to know what to expect if you expand or start a business. You get a better idea of what you need to do to get financing."

Brian Burke, senior vice president at Bank One and that bank's national SBA lending manager, was one of the exhibitors. "We made a lot of contacts that day," Burke says. "The people I talked to were really all over the board - a fair number of tech folks interested in starting up small tech-based businesses.... Internet applications came up several times; telephone services came up. There was a business plan for a climbing gym, a fairly big deal with a couple million bucks in loan...