Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 21, 2016 | Worcester Business Journal 11 Helder Machado (second from the left) now merges his military training with business at his company, Machado Consulting. Introducing Central Mass BUSINESS LEADS e-newsletter! A new offering from the Worcester Business Journal - sign up today to receive detailed information on hundreds of companies in the region that have incorporated within the past quarter, in a searchable, easy-to-use format. Each month, these leads will give you the opportunity to reach new and emerging business leaders seeking to establish themselves in the community with new partnerships and contracts. Stay ahead of your competition by reaching new clients! Worcester Business Journal WBJ Business LEADS The first Central Mass Business Leads E-newsletter will be sent out on November 14. Normally $500 annually or $50 for one month's worth of leads, we're offering a FREE TRIAL of this valuable E-newsletter through the end of December. Take advantage of this offer while it lasts and sign up today for this valuable resource! wbjournal.com/leads network of veteran entrepreneurs within the state's innovation community. "Veterans appreciate having a com- munity, and supporting each other in ways they can understand from being a vet and having that shared experience," said Stebbins. According to the 2013 Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, the share of new entrepreneurs in the U.S. that were military veterans fell from 10.2 percent in 2003 to 4.8 percent in 2013. The report also found the entre- preneurship rate among veterans had declined from 0.28 percent in 2012 to 0.23 percent in 2013. Rising veteran entrepreneurial funding The Massachusetts office of the U.S. Small Business Administration, for its part, has tailored its offerings to cater specifically to the entrepreneurial veteran population. In its 2016 fiscal year, the SBA gave about $34.3 million in loans to veteran entrepreneurs, a 42-percent increase in dollar amount over 2015, when it lent just over $24 million. This increase was partly due to some advantageous lending programs the SBA offered in its last fiscal year that were specifi- cally geared towards veterans. While the fees for both banks and entrepreneurs were waived for all loans less than $150,000 last year, the SBA did offer some incentives that would benefit veterans directly. Through SBA's express program, veterans could take out loans for $350,000 or less without paying a fee, and pay half the regular fee on loans val- ued between $150,000 and $5 million. In this fiscal year, the bank fee was reinstated for loans under $150,000, and the cap on paying half a borrower fee was lowered from $5 million to $500,000. Those advantages are avail- able to military veterans, as well as National Guard, reservists and military spouses. In addition to its loan pro- grams, veterans can also take advantage of SBA's Boots to Business program. "When you look at the skill set that people learn through military experi- ence, it translates well into entrepre- neurship," said Robert Nelson, the Massachusetts SBA director. "That's something we see a lot, when we talk to veterans." Barbara Finer, founder and CEO of TechSandBox, said it was important to create a program that catered to the values being in the military instills in people, she said. "Veterans are already trained in leadership and in thinking on their feet," she said. TechSandBox's program is meant to be used in conjunction with other pro- grams, like the ones offered by SBA, but its program will specifically cater to entrepreneurial veterans who work in clean tech, said Barry Rosenbloom, vet- eran community development manager at TechSandBox. Rosenbloom, a U.S. Army veteran, was part of the volunteer committee of military veterans and startup experts who conducted outreach and an initial assessment to identify how they could best serve the veteran community. Through the program, TechSandBox will work with the vet- eran community and supporting orga- nizations to document veterans' needs, offer relevant programming, and provide a network for existing and aspiring entrepreneurs. The grant from MassTech and MassDevelopment will allow for better research and community outreach into the needs of veterans pursuing technology entre- preneurships, hosting meetup events, and the production of a resource guide for interested veterans. The philosophical applications When Cameron Carey served in the Navy in the late 1960s, he was a Barbara Finer Barry Rosenbloom navigator, charged with making sure he got ships where they needed to go, when they needed to get there. Today, Carey is the founder and president of Sustainable Energy Solutions, a renewable energy pro- vider in Northborough. When asked if his entrepreneurial venture relates at all to his military experience, he said only on a philosophical level, because as a navigator, you're always charting out a path towards getting where you need to go. It's the same thing with entrepreneurship, he said. "The idea is that when you're in an entrepreneurial situation, you don't know quite what to do. You have to have some fixation on where you're going, and some way to track how you're doing in terms of prog- ress, are you getting there or not," said Carey. "You have to have some sense of what the unknown is, what's ahead of you, and you have to get your way through it, to make sure you're on your track." SBA lending to Massachusetts veterans Source: U.S. Small Business Administration, Massachusetts office 0 30 60 90 120 150 0 $7M $14M $21M $28M $35M Dollar amount Number of loans '12 '13 '14 '15 '16 W P H O T O / E D D C O T E

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