Winslow Sargeant was confirmed as chief counsel for the SBA’s Office of Advocacy by the Senate on Monday.
Sargeant had been serving as chief counsel since August 2010 under a recess appointment by President Obama, the SBA said. He is the sixth presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed chief counsel for the Office of Advocacy, according to the agency.
Prior to coming to the SBA, he was managing director of a Wisconsin venture firm that provided capital to health and IT companies. Sargeant received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was also the co-founder of a semiconductor integrated circuit design company that was acquired by a publicly traded company in 2000.
Under Sargeant’s tenure, the advocacy office has held more than 40 small business roundtables to hear from small businesses on their issues and concerns, the SBA said. The office has also filed 56 public comment letters with federal agencies to try to mitigate the impact of their proposed regulations on small business.
The SBA’s Office of Advocacy is an independent voice of small business with the federal government, according to the agency. The office’s chief counsel advances the views, concerns, and interests of small business before Congress, the White House, federal agencies, federal courts, and state policymakers.
