CHATSWORTH, Calif. — Credit unions looking to create acompetitive and financial edge in member business lending recentlyattended Business Partners, LLC's User's Training forum.

In its second year, the event was held in September and providedattendees with a venue for discussing the latest industry trends,including uncovering tips and learning from leading industryexecutives. Speakers included Stephen Olear, district counsel fromthe Small Business Administration, who addressed upcoming changesin environmental regulations and their impact on current and futureSBA loans. Joel Roberts, founder of Joel Roberts and Associates, acommunications and media consulting firm based in Los Angeles andNew York, also spoke to attendees. The sessions covered a range ofcommercial real estate and SBA-related topics such as lending,processing, servicing, asset management and reporting with the aimto help attendees further understand their loan portfolio andincrease their profitability in a changing marketplace, BusinessPartners said. The $601 million Telesis Community Credit Unionlaunched Business Partners in 1995. Today, it is owned by 12 creditunions nationwide, serves hundreds of credit unions, hasunderwritten more than $8 billion in business loan requests andcurrently has a servicing portfolio of more than $1.5 billion.