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Kitsap Bank’s SBA Loan Dept:
A small business resource
By Steve Littfin |
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Harvey
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David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director, once described SBA loan recipients as “…economic straphangers, firms that are too weak and too unproductive to make a significant contribution to the economy.” Scott Harvey disagrees.
Harvey manages Kitsap Bank’s SBA Loan Department. Twenty years of business lending tells him it is not the Microsofts and Boeings that drive the economy so much as small businesses. In terms of jobs, small businesses employ more than 50 percent of all workers. And as big businesses have reduced jobs through advanced technology, labor-intensive small businesses have been responsible for up to 80 percent of new ones.
Kitsap Bank is one of only four institutions in western Washington that have local SBA loan departments. Harvey and his staff of three full-time employees are dedicated exclusively to the business of SBA loans. They perform no other functions for the bank. As a result, says Harvey, his department is better able to track the frequent changes in government regulations and render those changes transparent to the borrower. According to one of his clients, “The SBA process was no more painful than getting a regular loan.” That, if you’re not familiar with government-guaranteed loans, is a ringing endorsement.
Harvey established an enviable record prior to coming to Kitsap Bank. He reopened California State Bank’s dismantled SBA loan department in West Covina, CA and achieved SBA Preferred Lender status within 23 months. He increased SBA lending for Frontier Bank, N.A. in La Palma, CA from $2 million to more than $30 million, and his management of SBA loans for Key Bank allowed it to be one of only 18 banks in the nation – and the first in Washington State – to qualify for the Fa$track Loan pilot program.
Harvey established Kitsap Bank’s SBA Loan Department in 1995. Seventeen months later Kitsap Bank achieved SBA Preferred Lender status. As a Preferred Lender, Harvey’s team has greater latitude processing loans on the basis of credit; more consideration can be given to otherwise promising clients. The department’s default rate is less than three-quarters of one percent. Significant, considering Kitsap Bank ranks third in the state for the number of SBA loans issued, exceeded only by Bank of America and City Bank. Currently, 30 to 35 percent of Kitsap Bank’s SBA loans are awarded to persons starting businesses or acquiring existing businesses. That tops the national average of 20 to 25 percent.
In recognition of his outstanding performance and service, Harvey was named National Financial Services Advocate of the Year in 1998. He is quick and pleased, however, to credit the department’s many successes to his full-time staff, Harlyn Ramos, Lending Assistant; Heather Medford, Loan Closing Officer; and Mark Taylor, Loan Officer.
One of Kitsap Bank’s many SBA success stories involves Jody Jones. In November 1992, Jones used her own money to purchase food concessions at Twanoh State Park, the Mason County Area Recreation Area, area baseball fields, and the courthouse. She also purchased vending machines and established a catering service. Lacking the track record necessary to qualify for an SBA loan, most of the profits were returned to her various enterprises. In November 1996 she secured a $100,000 SBA loan to purchase the espresso coffee concession at the courthouse, replace her aging catering van and upgrade other equipment.
In June 1998, Jones released Stockman’s “strap” long enough to seize the Silverdale Carwash without benefit of an SBA loan. Today she employs 17 people, operates the Clifton Deli in Belfair and the Twanoh State Park concession among other interests.
(Steve Littfin is a freelance writer based in Port Orchard.)
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