By unanimous consent, the Senate has confirmed Karen Gordon Mills as the next administrator of the Small Business Administration.
In testimony on April 1 before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Mills discussed her hands-on experience managing and helping to grow small businesses including managing factories in Arkansas and Ohio during the recession in the early 1990s, helping to grow organic food and women media companies and bringing technology to boat builders in rural Maine.
"The sum of my experience is this: I am a believer in American small business," Mills said. "I am a believer in America's ability to manufacture goods and services that are world class, and I am a believer in America's spirit of entrepreneurship. This spirit is one of our country's greatest assets and we need to cultivate it today, more than ever."
As the SBA's 23rd administrator, Mills will direct a federal agency with more than 2,000 fulltime employees.
