[Senate Hearing 118-90]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                      S. Hrg. 118-90

                      PATHWAYS TO WOMEN'S ENTREPRENEURSHIP: 
                     UNDERSTANDING OPPORTUNITIES AND BARRIERS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
                          AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

                                 OF THE

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 26, 2023

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Small Business and 
                            Entrepreneurship
                            
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                            


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                                ________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
53-226                    WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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            COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                              ----------                              

                 BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Chairman
                    JONI ERNST, Iowa, Ranking Member
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire        JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      RAND PAUL, Kentucky
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       TODD YOUNG, Indiana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  TED BUDD, North Carolina
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado
                 Sean Moore, Democratic Staff Director
                Meredith West, Republican Staff Director
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Benjamin L. Cardin, Chairman, U.S. Senator from Maryland.........     1
Joni Ernst, Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from Iowa...............     3

                               WITNESSES

Ms. Adrienne M. Somerville, CEO, Somerville Consulting Group, 
  LLC, Talent & Technical Solutions Corporation..................     6
    Prepared Statement...........................................     8
Ms. Patrice Onwuka, Director of the Center for Economic 
  Opportunity, Independent Women's Forum.........................    14
    Prepared Statement...........................................    16
Ms. Nik Sweeney, Founder/CEO, Amani Nicol Wellness...............    23
    Prepared Statement...........................................    25
Ms. Catherine Koch, President & CEO, K-Tec Systems, Inc..........    32
    Prepared Statement...........................................    34

              ADDITIONAL LETTERS/STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD

Engine
    Letter dated August 3, 2023..................................    52
Rose, Kathryn
    Statement dated August 9, 2023...............................    56

                        QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

Ms. Catherine Koch
    Responses to questions submitted by Ranking Member Ernst.....    58
Ms. Patrice Onwuka
    Responses to questions submitted by Ranking Member Ernst.....    60

 
 PATHWAYS TO WOMEN'S ENTREPRENEURSHIP: UNDERSTANDING OPPORTUNITIES AND 
                                BARRIERS

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2023

                      United States Senate,
                        Committee on Small Business
                                      and Entrepreneurship,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in 
Room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Benjamin Cardin, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Cardin [presiding], Hirono, Rosen, Ernst, 
Hawley, and Hickenlooper.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARDIN

    Chairman Cardin. Well, good morning, everyone.
    [Chorus from Audience.] Good morning.
    Chairman Cardin. Senator Ernst and I are not used to this 
type of attendance at our hearings. [Laughter and applause.]
    Chairman Cardin. We really welcome you to this hearing. We 
know that America is in great shape when we see the spirit 
that's in this room. The entrepreneurial spirit of women has 
really carried us into an unprecedented growth in small 
businesses during this period of time.
    So we applaud your entrepreneurship and we welcome you to 
our committee. We are looking forward to this particular 
hearing as we talk about how the Small Business Administration, 
how all of us work together to remove obstacles that have been 
in the way for women entrepreneurs.
    So we welcome you to the hearing and we look forward to the 
distinguished panel of witnesses and their testimony.
    I particularly--and I'll introduce the two witnesses that 
happen to be here from Maryland in a few moments, but whenever 
I have Marylanders in the room--I got some more Marylanders in 
the room--they get special attention. So I'm going to have 
special words to say about Ms. Somerville and Mrs. Sweeney.
    Every day I'm inspired by the tenacity and innovation of 
small businesses across the country, especially women-owned 
small businesses. Today, we are witnessing an historic rise in 
women's entrepreneurship under the Biden-Harris Administration. 
It has lifted individuals and communities across the country to 
prosperity.
    As Chair of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship 
Committee, one of my highest priorities is to ensure that our 
nation taps into the entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping 
our nation to build a fair and more just economy for all.
    Women-owned small businesses, particularly black women-
owned small businesses, are leading the charge post-pandemic 
with historic numbers of new small business startups but 
unfortunately still face systemic barriers to success as 
entrepreneurs.
    In a committee staff report released prior to this hearing, 
we outline how access to capital, gaps in mentorship, under-
utilization of women-owned firms in federal contracting, and 
under-investment in childcare all make the job of operating a 
small business unnecessarily harder for women, and I want to 
compliment my staff for the production of this report.
    I encourage you all to please take a look at it because it 
provides a chronology of the challenges that we face today for 
women entrepreneurs and I hope this will be a guidepost for us 
moving forward in trying to deal with some of the changes in 
the Small Business Administration's tools that are in their 
toolkit that will help our women.
    That's why throughout my tenure in Congress I have been 
laser focused on comprehensive legislation to reauthorize 
several important programs that support American women-owned 
small businesses.
    Last month, for example, I introduced the Women's Business 
Center Improvement Act, which would increase federal support to 
women's business centers or WBCs by doubling the maximum annual 
grant to $300,000. [Applause.]
    Chairman Cardin. Both Senator Ernst and I appreciated your 
initial response. That was great. But I have to exercise the 
responsibilities of the Chair and ask that you allow our 
testimonies to go forward without response from the audience.
    The bill appropriates--even though I like the response. 
[Laughter.]
    The bill appropriates $31.5 million for each fiscal year 
from 2024 through 2027 and requires an annual report on the 
program.
    WBCs provide free or low-cost counseling and training 
focusing on addressing the unique challenges facing women who 
want to start, grow, and expand their small businesses.
    Just last year, I was able to secure a new Women's Business 
Center at Bowie State University, Maryland's oldest 
historically black university. The SBA awarded a grant to 
Rockville Economic Development to launch the center. The new 
center is the fourth WBC in Maryland, joining a WBC in 
Rockville, a WBC operated by Morgan State University, and a WBC 
in Salisbury operated by Maryland Capital Enterprises.
    American women-owned small business owners and 
entrepreneurs deserve the very best tools and resources to keep 
them growing. It's the right thing to do as for the values of 
our nation. It's also important for America's growth.
    Congress must do more to ensure women and particularly 
traditionally underserved women have access to the same 
opportunities as their male counterparts.
    I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses and I'm 
eager to learn more about what Congress can do to further 
advance the interests of women entrepreneurs.
    And now let me recognize the distinguished Ranking Member 
Senator Ernst.

                   STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST

    Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all 
of our guests here today, as well.
    I walked in the room and I was incredibly impressed by 
having so many just wonderful strong women entrepreneurs. So 
thank you for joining us.
    I also want to welcome the Association of Women's Business 
Centers and thanks for all the work that you are doing and it's 
incredibly important that you're out there supporting women all 
across our great United States, and a special shout-out to T.J. 
Daniels of the Iowa Women's Business Center who is also----
    Chairman Cardin. You can respond to that.
    Senator Ernst [continuing]. With us. Yeah. [Applause.]
    Who is with us here today. So thank you so much.
    Today, we will examine ways to help women-owned small 
businesses succeed. There are more than 12 million women small 
business owners contributing $2.1 trillion in total sales to 
our national economy.
    While women entrepreneurs are creating jobs and igniting 
local economies, according to the National Federation of 
Independent Business, the Small Business Optimism Index remains 
below the 49-year average for the 18th consecutive month. 
Inflation and rising interest rates are top concerns.
    Unfortunately, small businesses continue to suffer under 
Bidenomics. Despite the White House attempting to paint an 
optimistic view of the economy, small business owners aren't 
buying the narrative.
    President Biden has issued nearly $360 billion in new 
regulatory costs on our small businesses. Rather than focusing 
their time and energy on strengthening and growing their small 
businesses, many have to spend time figuring out how to comply 
with burdensome government regulations.
    In an effort to address this, I'm working on the PROVE IT 
Act to ensure small businesses have a voice in federal 
agencies' rulemaking process.
    Another challenge I hear from businesses and families is 
the lack of access to affordable quality childcare options. In 
Iowa, 53,000 women have left the workforce since 2020 due to 
lack of childcare options.
    While the Iowa Legislature and Republican Governor Kim 
Reynolds have made progress, there's much more work to be done 
specifically at the federal level.
    That's why I'm proud to say my bipartisan Small Business 
Childcare Investment Act with Senator Rosen passed out of our 
committee just last week. The bill allows nonprofit childcare 
providers, including religious nonprofits, to access the SBA 
loans. This legislation will create a greater number of 
affordable childcare options, especially in rural areas, like 
mine, and I will continue to advocate for this bill to be 
signed into law.
    Furthermore, accessing quality business training and 
coaching is critical to our women small business owners. By 
modernizing the Small Business Administration's SCORE Program, 
we will be giving entrepreneurs, especially our women 
entrepreneurs, access to quality mentorship.
    My SCORE Act of 2023, which revitalizes SBA's Mentorship 
Program by adding a team of women business leaders called the 
National Women's Business Coaches, will work alongside SCORE 
coaches and pair them with aspiring and existing entrepreneurs.
    These coaches will work to recruit individuals with 
expertise across all job industries to join the SCORE Program. 
This will help guarantee our young entrepreneurs receive the 
relevant and productive assistance to support their path to 
success.
    Lastly, I want to highlight a critical bill I introduced to 
close loopholes that enable fraud in the Women-Owned Small 
Business Contracting Program.
    The Accountability in Women-Owned Small Business 
Contracting Act eliminates self-certification in the program 
and holds federal agencies to task by forcing department and 
agency heads to testify before Congress when they fail to meet 
their own women-owned small business contracting goals.
    Since much of the discussion today will focus on the SBA's 
Women Business Center Program and I'm glad for that, I am 
thankful that we're able to focus on this, but I want to be 
very clear about my priorities as we consider any potential 
reauthorization of this program.
    The distribution of program resources must be made more 
consistent across all states, especially in our rural areas.
    Mr. Chairman, I do commend you for having four women's 
business centers in Maryland, but I'm sure you can understand 
my frustration that in Iowa we only have one, one center to 
service the entire state and our state is very large.
    Many of my colleagues on the Republican side share my 
frustration that as the Administration has added additional 
women's business centers to the program, they haven't seen the 
benefits in their own states, many of which like mine have only 
one service center.
    The placement of new centers and the allocation of taxpayer 
dollars by the SBA must be distributed broadly in the future.
    Again, I want to thank all of you very much for being here 
today and I look forward to our discussion on how we can best 
serve our women entrepreneurs.
    Thank you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Cardin. Well, Senator Ernst, thank you for your 
opening statement.
    I share your concern. I want to make sure the resources are 
fairly distributed in all parts of our country and you have a 
big state and it's difficult with just one center. So I 
recognize your concerns and I assure you I want to work with 
you to make sure that women entrepreneurs are served throughout 
the entire country.
    I'm now going to introduce our panel of distinguished 
witnesses. I'll be introducing you in the order in which you 
will be presenting--we'll rotate between my introductions and 
Senator Ernst's introductions.
    But I'm very pleased to introduce Ms. Adrienne Somerville, 
the CEO of Somerville Consulting Group, LLC, and Talent & 
Technical Solutions Corporation, located in Hughesville, 
Maryland.
    You have an impressive background of academic achievements 
from Norfolk State University, Florida Institute of Technology, 
Georgetown University, and Harvard University Kennedy School 
Executive Program.
    I was very impressed in your background that you were 
partnering with Apple and Google and developed and produced a 
Mobile Career Guidebook that is downloadable to smart phones 
and tablets. So we thank you for that service that you have 
provided to the community.
    And now for the introduction of Ms. Onwuka, I'll turn to 
Senator Ernst.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Patrice Onwuka, Director, Center for Economic 
Opportunity, Independent Women's Forum. The Independent Women's 
Forum is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to develop and 
advocate for common sense policy solutions that enhance 
people's freedom, opportunities, and well-being.
    The Center for Economic Opportunity specifically seeks to 
promote and develop policies that expand workplace choice, 
flexibility, freedom, and opportunity.
    Prior to her career at IWF, Patrice served as the Senior 
Fellow at the Alliance for Charitable Excellence and before 
that she worked as the Communications Director for Generation 
Opportunity.
    Thank you for joining us, Patrice.
    Chairman Cardin. We then have Mrs. Nik Sweeney, the Founder 
and CEO of Amani Nicol Wellness in Baltimore, Maryland. We're 
pleased to have you with us.
    In the spring of 2019, Nik was unemployed, recovering from 
surgery. She then decided to take her experience as a Zumba 
instructor and put that to entrepreneurship. In the fall of 
2019, she made the big jump to become a full-time entrepreneur. 
She opened the first and only of its kind holistic wellness spa 
integrating self-care with lifestyle medicine and programming 
to meet the needs of women in under-resourced communities.
    Lastly, we have Mrs. Koch, Koch. Sorry.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
    We have Ms. Catherine Koch and she is the President and CEO 
of K-Tec Systems. K-Tec Systems was founded by Koch in 1989 in 
Southeast Michigan. This small business is a global 
manufacturer of advanced control and automation technology, 
specializing in accurate and reliable temperature flow and 
pressure measurements.
    As a female entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry, 
Catherine is passionate about helping other women start their 
own businesses. As a Global Forum committee Member of the 
Women's Business Enterprise National Council and the Board 
Member and Vice President of--and it got cut off there. So we 
welcome you but thank you, thank you, Ms. Koch, very much for 
being here.
    Chairman Cardin. To our witnesses, your entire statements 
will be made part of our record without objection. You may 
proceed as you wish. We ask you to try to summarize your 
statements in about five minutes and leave a little time for us 
to ask you some questions.
    So we'll start with Ms. Somerville.

STATEMENT OF ADRIENNE M. SOMERVILLE, CEO, SOMERVILLE CONSULTING 
     GROUP, LLC, TALENT & TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS CORPORATION, 
                     HUGHESVILLE, MARYLAND

    Ms. Somerville. Good morning and thank you, Chair Cardin 
and Ranking Member Ernst and Members of the Committee on Small 
Business and Entrepreneurship, for this amazing opportunity to 
share my experience as a female business owner and government 
contractor in Maryland.
    My name is Adrienne Somerville and it's an honor to 
highlight my incredible benefit of how technical assistance 
helped me in my pursuit of business ownership.
    I am the Founder and CEO of two small businesses. I am 
Consulting Adrienne Somerville Consulting Firm and we 
collaborate with diverse leaders to ensure the success in 
providing ethical, transparent, repeatable, and affordable 
talent management solutions focused on improving accountability 
and ownership at all levels to build strong performance within 
each company to ensure strong profit margins.
    In addition, Talent & Technical Solutions, we focus on 
building IT solutions that result in a plethora of data 
analytics to help build companies that manage their talent 
portfolios.
    Throughout building a business, I experienced many 
challenges that I later learned are similar to those of other 
women across the nation.
    Today, I will highlight a few: accessing sources of 
funding, navigating available information and tools available 
for business owners, and identifying effective mentorship.
    By far, the biggest barrier, of course, to any business is 
resourcing. I was faced with difficulty identifying capital 
opportunities to support the purchasing of business development 
tools and resources which were expensive and needed to enable 
the success of my business and scale accordingly.
    Ultimately, it was my work with resource partners that 
helped me identify these avenues for private and philanthropic 
capital which took my business to the next level.
    As we identify opportunities to support women business 
owners like me across our nation, I ask this committee to 
consider capital solutions to incentivize both public and 
private avenues to capital.
    Additionally, another challenge I was met with was 
navigating resources available for entrepreneurs. SBA resource 
partners provided me with the tools and strategies during my 
entrepreneurship journey that set me up for success, 
sustainable success.
    The resource partners I worked with uniquely supported my 
needs throughout my entrepreneurship journey. I worked with 
four different small business resource partners in various 
capacities: the Baltimore-Metro Washington Business Center, the 
Virginia Women's Business Center, SBDC, and SCORE, all of which 
helped me as a business owner in different ways.
    I have firsthand seen the uniqueness and the value and the 
impact each resource partner has had in offering me various 
opportunities through the stages of my development.
    SCORE supported me with my pre-business establishment. This 
organization provided robust access to tools and training 
materials early in my process. I was able to leverage the 
tutorials, the manuals, the books, the algorithms, and the 
structural outlines. They helped me with the groundwork and the 
creation of my business.
    Once established as a business, I connected with the 
benefits of SBDC, the network in Maryland, as well, which 
helped me develop the application of the tools, the 
identification of resources, the establishment of mentorship.
    Through this resource I was able to identify local 
opportunities in my community in which I could have the 
greatest targeted impact. As my business infrastructure was 
built, the Baltimore-Metro WBC and Women's Business Center of 
Virginia enabled me through a Guide of Designated Programs that 
were very targeted and rich for my business.
    This resource was critical in providing assistance to 
support my needs as a woman business owner. Through initiatives 
like UpScale, certification, training, digital training, 
conferences, networking events, and specialized finance 
sessions, I was able to build a true access plan.
    Through this program, I was able to apply for the WOSB 
Certification for the State of Virginia which will also open 
doors for my business and increase opportunity in terms of 
visibility in my network.
    As a business owner with only six employees, the WBC helped 
me provide a one-stop shop when approaching this certification 
process. When considering additional solutions that will 
support women entrepreneurs like me in pursuit of ownership, I 
ask that you consider the following: expand reach to 
economically-disadvantaged regions, equal encouragement for 
resource partners to collaborate with other agencies and 
organizations, focus on technology adopting in this hybrid work 
environment, focus on streamlining reporting.
    We heard a little bit of that today in terms of the 
administrative requirements. Designated marketing specifics for 
resource partners, the reauthorization of the WBC Program along 
with other resource partners, and also support increased 
appropriation and funding for the WBC.
    I thank you for your time today and I look forward to 
answering any of your questions. It's truly an honor to be 
here.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Somerville follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]	
    
    Chairman Cardin. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
    Chairman Cardin. And you did it exactly in five minutes. 
That's really good.
    Mrs. Onwuka.

    STATEMENT OF PATRICE ONWUKA, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR 
 ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM, WASHINGTON, 
                              D.C.

    Ms. Onwuka. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Cardin, 
Ranking Member Ernst, and the Members of the Committee, for 
having me to appear today.
    I work for the Independent Women's Forum and, as mentioned, 
we want women to value free markets and personal liberty and so 
we advance policies that enhance people's freedom, opportunity, 
and well-being.
    I've got to say entrepreneurship has created ladders of 
opportunity for women of all ages, backgrounds, and races. So 
it's critical to ensure that government policies do not erect 
barriers to opportunity for women.
    Now the growth of female entrepreneurship over the past few 
decades has been tremendous. As the Ranking Member mentioned, 
women own 12 million businesses, small businesses, or 43 
percent of them.
    Interestingly, only about one in 10 actually employ 
workers. Most women that own businesses are one-woman shops and 
they tend to be concentrated in sectors that track closely with 
where women's labor force participation is.
    Most female business owners strike out on their own because 
they're looking for independence, flexibility, and the ability 
to fulfill their passion. This actually sets them apart from a 
lot of their male counterparts.
    Now despite many bright spots, women's businesses face 
struggles. Some challenges are universal to men- and women-
owned businesses, such as labor shortages. We've seen this in 
the national economy. Inflation, unfortunately, still has not 
gone back down to pre-2021 levels. Regulations, taxes, and 
uncertain economic conditions.
    Average women's revenue for women-owned businesses are 
rising but they lag behind those of firms owned by men, a lack 
of capital. I'm sure we're going to hear a lot about that. 
Interestingly, men start their businesses with six times as 
much capital as women do.
    Women also lack robust networks and that particularly is 
true in rural environments. Almost half of female founders cite 
a lack of available mentors or advisors as an impediment and so 
it's important that government programs where private programs 
are not available be a support to them.
    Two additional challenges to starting businesses that I 
actually think are directly the result of government-imposed 
barriers to building human capital, Number 1, overly 
restrictive occupational licensure at state levels, and Number 
2, restrictions on independent contracting.
    I'll skip a little bit on the occupational licensure since 
that tends to be a state level issue.
    But on independent contracting, many women have found the 
flexibility and the freedom to balance work-life-careers by 
being an independent contractor, and unfortunately we see some 
congressional legislation currently pending that would impose 
restrictions on the nation's 65 million freelancers in this 
country.
    I bet you we have some freelancers right in this room 
today. They're not traditional employees. They work for 
themselves. They define when, where, and how they work, and for 
women flexibility is what allows them to continue to raise 
their families, to take care of aging parents and sick family 
members, and, frankly, just to fulfill their passions.
    So it's important that Congress does not needlessly 
reclassify independent contractors across this country. We 
would lose thousands of jobs, millions of jobs, frankly, and 
raise business costs on small businesses by anywhere between 
$18 to $64 billion each week.
    So Congress should not be nationalizing independent 
contracting. A piece of that, though, a piece of the 
entrepreneurship and what makes it so interesting is that it 
allows for flexibility for care-giving and I dropped my kids 
off right at daycare before this, so I understand how important 
it is.
    That's why we should make childcare options more 
affordable, plentiful, and diverse. Diversity is key. Not every 
parent wants a formal childcare center. Some informal childcare 
options that are home-based care, for example, or, frankly, 
staying with relatives is really important and, unfortunately, 
unnecessary regulations that don't have anything to do with the 
quality of care in childcare centers is increasing costs by up 
to $1,800 per child each year.
    So there's opportunity for us to look at legislation that 
would make it easier for small businesses to be able to offer 
quality childcare for their employees and I thank Senator Ernst 
for mentioning the Small Business Childcare Investment Act 
because I think that's one of those opportunities.
    Congress needs to consider also just reducing the burden on 
small businesses. On average, regulatory costs amount to 
$11,700 per employee each year, and small businesses, they are 
the ones who bear the brunt of those increased regulatory 
costs.
    So there are lots of measures that are floating around that 
look at how do we ensure that the Small Business Administration 
is ensuring that every new piece of regulation that is passed 
by Congress does not impose new compliance costs on small 
businesses.
    I have lots of other ideas but I will stop right there. 
Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Onwuka follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]	
    
    Chairman Cardin. Thank you very much for your testimony, 
appreciate it very, very much.
    Ms. Sweeney.

 STATEMENT OF NIK SWEENEY, FOUNDER/CEO, AMANI NICOL WELLNESS, 
                      BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

    Ms. Sweeney. Good morning, Chair Cardin, Ranking Member 
Ernst, and Distinguished Members of the Committee.
    It is a pleasure to be here and I'm honored today as a 
business owner in Baltimore, Maryland, sharing my experience 
with the Baltimore Metropolitan Women's Business Center.
    I'll first start with Amani Nicol Wellness, where we are 
today and how we would not be in the position that we are if it 
was not for the support of the WBC.
    So in 2019, unemployed with this big mission and only 
$2,000 in my pocket and an opportunity to make this dream 
happen, we developed an innovative approach to help disrupt the 
health care system when it comes to prevention and management 
of diabetes.
    But how are we able to do this? Well, at this time we are a 
for-profit social enterprise which means there are two sides to 
our business model, one specifically for women who are looking 
to get well while we're able to leverage those resources to 
fund our programs for women in underserved and under-resourced 
communities.
    We are a CDC-recognized prevention program with the highest 
rank that the CDC delivers which is 4+ recognition because of 
our ability to sustain our impact.
    We partner with Notre Dame School of Pharmacy as an 
accredited diabetes self-management provider to support women 
specifically with Type 2 diabetes.
    We were accepted to Innovation Works and Accelerated 
Program that helped us to raise our first six figure capital 
raise and we have partnered with the Office of Women's Health 
to help support self measuring of blood pressure, our Blood 
Pressure Program.
    In 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, we were fortunate 
enough to be able to relocate from a top office to a 
professional office park that more than doubled the size and 
helped us to become ADA-compliant so that we could benefit from 
becoming Medicaid-approved, contracted with six managed care 
organizations from Aetna to BlueCross, as well as Medicare.
    Why is that significant? Because in Baltimore City alone, 
one of the cities with the highest disparities in terms of 
diabetes, we are one of only four Medicare providers when it 
comes to diabetes prevention.
    We're happy to note that we're also the only diabetes 
prevention program for the deaf and hard-of-hearing in the 
entire country and yet we're facing many challenges and 
barriers.
    While all that success if notable, it would not be possible 
without the support of the Baltimore-Washington WBC where as 
soon as we closed doors in March of 2020, within a week we 
received a mentor, Carmen Braxton, who for nine months walked 
us through strategically to keep us on point so that those 
goals that we just outlined could become realized.
    So as a result of that, we were able to contract federally. 
We were able to expand access, including to the Hispanic-Latino 
community. Our Diabetes Prevention Program that was launched in 
2022 was the first one launched in the state of Maryland next 
to Johns Hopkins.
    So while all that sounds great, what about these barriers? 
Well, interestingly, we had just provided access to women and 
the deaf community and three months later, April 2022, I was 
diagnosed with breast cancer. With capacity constraints, 
revenue suffering, and trying to figure out how to keep working 
because there was no option to close, what mattered most would 
be the resources and the ecosystem like that provided by the 
WBC.
    You see, it goes full circle with support. Being able to 
access other resources like additional funding would not have 
been possible. Being able to benefit from Morgan State 
University who is a partner for us because we are able to 
benefit from interns and a Master's of Public Health Program 
and Doctorate Programs.
    We are excited because that program is the reason why Amani 
Nicol Wellness did not become one of those businesses that 
failed. In less than four years in the heart of a pandemic, we 
are supporting the health in Baltimore and Maryland as a whole 
because of their efforts.
    So reauthorizing that program, sustaining the money that it 
needs in order for it to continue is not just about helping the 
women entrepreneurs like myself to feel good about the dream 
that's been realized but it is a powerful impact on the 
community as a whole and not just for today but we're talking 
about the ability to affect generations to come.
    Thank you. [Applause.]
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Sweeney follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]	
    
    Chairman Cardin. Thank you very much for your testimony, 
but thank you for what you have meant to our community in 
Baltimore. We appreciate it as a fellow Baltimorean.
    Mrs. Koch.

 STATEMENT OF CATHERINE KOCH, PRESIDENT & CEO, K-TEC SYSTEMS, 
                  INC., ST. FERNDALE, MICHIGAN

    Ms. Koch. Chairman Cardin, Ranking Member Ernst,----
    Chairman Cardin. Your mic's not on.
    Ms. Koch. Chairman Cardin, Ranking Member Ernst, 
Distinguished Committee Members and guests, good morning.
    My name is Cathy Koch. I am the Founder and Co-Owner of K-
Tec Systems, a Detroit area manufacturer of temperature 
sensors, wire harnesses, and control systems. We serve diverse 
industries, including automotive, aerospace, food, medical, and 
chemical.
    I am also an alumni of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small 
Business Program.
    It is an honor to be here today. I appreciate your 
invitation and your attention to leveling the playing field for 
female small business owners.
    I would like to begin by thanking the committee for its 
bipartisan work last week to pass a series of bills to 
modernize the Small Business Administration.
    I'm here today to share my personal experience and the 
unique barriers I have faced and, importantly, what can be done 
to create equity and leveling the playing field.
    Let me start from the beginning. It was 1989. I had a one-
year-old daughter. I was a recently divorced single mother and 
I was working in sales in a male-dominated auto industry. '89 
was a different time. I loved sales and I loved being a mom, 
but I was told by my male boss that a woman couldn't do sales, 
let alone a new single mom. I disagreed.
    I knew my value and my talent. So I went to a competitor. 
While things were better, I was still held back. Eventually, I 
realized the only way I could reach my true potential was to 
start my own business. I put together a business plan. I sought 
a loan from a traditional lender but because I was a woman, I 
couldn't get one without a co-signer. In fact, I hadn't been 
able to secure a loan without a co-signer until three years 
ago, even though I've been profitable in business every year.
    Do you think male small business owners face similar 
circumstances?
    I can honestly say the women I speak to are not aware of 
the Women's Business Centers and I don't know the programs they 
offer. Wow! Since I couldn't get a loan to start a business, I 
bought a house with a land loan. I used $10,000 from the loan 
to finance the start of K-Tec. I had succeeded in overcoming 
the first challenge female small business owners face, far more 
limited access to capital than their male counterparts.
    Starting a business is hard. I made sacrifices. I brought 
my daughter to work with me regularly because like many female 
small business owners access to affordable and reliable 
childcare was another barrier I faced.
    Eventually my hard work paid off. We were doing business 
with every major automobile manufacturer and had broken into 
other industries. Then COVID-19 changed everything. I didn't 
think my company would survive. Thanks to PPP, EIDL Loan, seed 
loan from Great Lakes Women's Business Council, and my amazing 
employees, K-Tec pulled through COVID and is thriving again.
    In fact, we are doing some of our most meaningful work yet 
with the new contract to supply temperature sensors for the 
transportation of a new cancer drug.
    Here's the truth. My story, while troubling, is a success 
story. The challenge that I faced and still face didn't stop me 
but they persist. The extra challenges female women businesses 
face in our nation's economy output.
    Think of the charge we could put into our economy if we 
weren't wasting time and energy breaking through these 
barriers. As this committee continues to work, I offer these 
perspective where Congress and the SBA can focus to give us a 
fair shake.
    First, make mentoring and coaching opportunities more 
accessible and tailored to the women they serve. I wish I had 
more female mentors who understood my situation and could help 
me navigate the challenges of starting a business. That is why 
I mentor female entrepreneurs.
    I can honestly say that women I speak to are not aware of 
the Women's Business Centers and don't know the programs they 
offer.
    Second, reform the procurement process. It is nearly 
impossible for small business owners to sell their product to 
the Federal Government. Even though I am a WOSB, I've 
effectively given up and I'm far from not alone. It's no wonder 
the SBA regularly misses its five percent contracts awarded to 
female small business centers.
    Here's a true story that should resonate. My products are 
currently purchased by the U.S. Air Force. They aren't bought 
from me. They're purchased from a larger male-owned business 
who quite literally is the middle man because he can afford the 
resources to navigate the procurement process. If that doesn't 
trouble you, consider this.
    The Federal Government is paying more for them than they 
would be purchasing directly from me because he marks up the 
price. The only reason for this is because the procurement 
process is too difficult and resource-intensive to navigate.
    And third, continue to modernize the SBA to address the 
challenges of today's small businesses. A lack of access to 
childcare is a workforce issue and a small business issue and 
it must be treated as such.
    I'd like to thank this committee and Senator Ernst for 
working to address the childcare challenges small owners face. 
We must also examine how the SBA Federal Government can 
increase access to affordable capital for small businesses.
    I could share more as this is a real passion for me. 
However, in the interest of time I would conclude by thanking 
the committee. I look forward to answering any questions you 
have and stand ready to work with you to find solutions.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Koch follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]	
    
    Chairman Cardin. Well, thank you very much for your 
testimony. [Applause.]
    I must tell you we've always been impressed with the 
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses. We now see a face for 
one. So thank you very much for your testimony.
    Well, I just want you to know, Senator Ernst, I know, will 
agree with me, we hold many hearings during the course of a 
Congress. The four of you, very impressive testimony, very 
helpful to us, and each one of you stayed exactly within the 
five minutes. That's the type of--that's right. It is unheard 
of here. So thank you very much for the input that you've made 
to our committee.
    I just really want to underscore a couple points. I'll 
start with Mrs. Sweeney. We had a hearing that I chaired in the 
Senate Finance Committee last week on transplant needs which 
basically we do a lot of kidney transplants because people are 
not taking care of their diabetes and hypertension.
    So what you're doing is critically important for the 
individual, but it's also important for our health care system 
because dialysis and transplants are extremely expensive, 
necessary but expensive, but if you do the maintenance and 
prevention of diabetes or management of diabetes and dealing 
with hypertension, you reduce significantly the number of renal 
diseases, particularly end stage renal disease.
    So I just want to thank you for that, and you're focusing, 
which I thought was really extremely impressive, on underserved 
communities.
    So how did you get into that commitment and does the system 
reward you for reaching out because, as Mrs. Koch said, a lot 
of people don't know about the services. You have to do 
outreach. So how did the SBA tools help you in reaching this 
very vulnerable community?
    Mrs. Sweeney. Well, thank you.
    With the WBC, we were able to focus on prevention right at 
the heart of the pandemic. That has always been our focus, but 
with the impact of COVID, that's where we narrowed down on 
prevention as the primary focus.
    One out of three adult Americans have pre-diabetes which is 
the precursor. So what is the support that we have? Well, (1) 
we are reimbursed through Medicaid and Medicare. Those are 
small numbers. Where the barrier comes is that there's a lot of 
administrative responsibility on our staff and medical 
reimbursement does not cover it all.
    We're also a for-profit. So that limits our ability to get 
a lot of the funding that's in place. Maryland alone has 
received millions just these past few years related 
specifically to diabetes prevention and management, but we're 
rarely ever in those conversations. So that's one of our goals, 
but we do a lot of outreach in the community and a lot of that 
is done with our outreach team and that is primarily because 
that is the only way we're going to keep the conversation going 
about these preventable illnesses.
    Chairman Cardin. Thank you.
    The report that I referenced in my opening statement points 
out the disparities with women-owned small businesses. The 
number of loan rejections are higher than the male businesses. 
The number of women-owned businesses that have to use their own 
savings and resources and family resources versus their male 
counterparts is much, much higher and the list goes on.
    The number of 7(a) loans, the number of 504 loans are much 
lower than the demographics would have you think would be 
right, and then you go to venture capital which is almost 
nonexistent in women-owned small businesses.
    Then on the contracting side, you mentioned this, Mrs. 
Koch, the government has reached all of its goals on small 
business set-asides, except for women. We have not reached the 
five percent which is not acceptable.
    So, Ms. Somerville, you mentioned the use of the Women's 
Business Centers, the SCORE Program for mentoring, and we 
talked about the need for mentoring, and it seems to be working 
well for you.
    Mrs. Koch, you had some concerns as to whether we have 
women mentors available which I think is a really strong point 
in the SBDCs.
    How do you put together the tools that are there today and 
how can we make them more effective?
    Ms. Somerville. I had a really good experience in terms of 
outreach and exposure to the different tools that are available 
at each of the SBA resources and one of the greatest take-aways 
was the building of the networks that are offered that allowed 
me to have access to other ways to generate revenue.
    For example, with the Women Business Center, I was 
introduced to philanthropic opportunities in which I was able 
to compete at a pitch competition, if you will, to gain 
additional resources.
    I was able to win about $14,000 and it enabled me to buy 
the IT tools I needed, my computers, licenses to build my 
company and so I think it's the outreach and it's the resources 
that they exposed me to that were also in the community 
available.
    I simply would never have been aware had they not granted 
me the opportunity, access, and exposure.
    Chairman Cardin. Senator Ernst.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Patrice, I'll start with you. In your testimony, you had 
highlighted findings from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that 
demonstrated businesses with 50 employees or fewer incur 
regulatory costs that are nearly 20 percent higher than for the 
average firm.
    Earlier this year, I introduced the PROVEIT Act which will 
hold federal agencies accountable when they overlook important 
due diligence requirements as they impose sweeping regulations 
that maybe aren't right for small businesses.
    Do you think that businesses with 50 employees or fewer 
should be subject to the same regulations as businesses with 
over 500 employees?
    Ms. Onwuka. Well, Ranking Member Ernst, I mean, I think 
that they are unfair. A lot of mom and pop shops, they don't 
have the same resources as large companies do, particularly 
when it comes to compliance costs and legal experts that they 
have. So that they can dive into the minutia of all of the 
federal code and figure out what regulations are new and how 
they can, you know, abide by them.
    When we think about women entrepreneurs, I mean, the 
members here, the panelists here have talked about it, but I've 
also talked about the research that, you know, you're starting 
with a capital deficit to begin with and so you're trying to 
build your business and at the same time trying to figure out 
what the regulatory burdens are at the federal level, not to 
mention state and local regulations that add a new layer of 
challenge.
    So, absolutely, I think your bill and there are other bills 
on the House side that look at, you know, every piece of new 
regulation coming out from every single agency, from Energy all 
the way to Labor, to ensure that there's going to be zero costs 
on small businesses and then to ensure that at least small 
businesses understand what those regulations are so that they 
can figure out how they can comply with them.
    Senator Ernst. So the regulatory burden is pretty heavy on 
our small businesses.
    What about those broader economic challenges, like the high 
interest rates, workforce challenges, how do those affect our 
women entrepreneurs, as well?
    Ms. Onwuka. Sure. Well, labor shortages are obviously not 
new. For decades some industries, like construction, have had 
them, but we're seeing them in industries where women are 
concentrating their businesses.
    In the retail industry but particularly in caring 
industries, whether it's home care services and in AIDS, 
whether it's, you know, daycare centers, childcare, a lot of 
businesses, small businesses find it hard to find people to 
compete with larger companies that can offer greater pay and 
benefits and so, you know, all of these make it difficult for 
you to be able to hire and retain your folks and then add to 
that the regulatory costs that can come with keeping people 
employed.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you.
    As I mentioned in my opening statement, women in rural 
communities lack the same resources available to those that are 
living in more densely populated areas and as I mentioned, 
there are four WBCs located within a 50-mile radius of 
Washington, D.C. and yet there's only one that is located in 
the entire state of Iowa.
    So how can we better assist women in those rural 
communities?
    Ms. Onwuka. Well, interestingly,--thank you, Ranking 
Member. Interestingly, there are a couple of different pieces 
that I think rural female entrepreneurs--challenges that they 
face.
    I mean, women, they tend to have lower incomes to begin 
with. Obviously that means less capital to start their 
businesses. They have higher poverty rates, interestingly, and 
then there are the infrastructure gaps and particularly when it 
comes to technology, we're seeing that rural women have--
they're the least likely group to have internet access at home.
    So when we look at the information system today and how 
many new entrepreneurs are starting their businesses simply 
with this little gal right here in their hands, if you don't 
have access to internet at home, then it's going to make it 
very difficult for you to be able to sell your wares on the 
internet and to find folks.
    So I think looking at how we build infrastructure, make 
sure that infrastructure is particularly high-tech 
infrastructure is available, it's going to be important, and 
then, you know, I think the mentoring and the peer-to-peer 
coaching is very important and so while it may be hard to find 
mentors, there may be peers in your area.
    You mentioned the fact that there are so few women business 
centers in rural areas, but maybe there are peer networks that 
can be built up and utilize technology to tap into all of the 
other women centers that are in other states or in other 
regions. That can be a way of helping to ensure that our rural 
female entrepreneurs have access to the resources that they 
need.
    Senator Ernst. Yes, and I appreciate you mentioning how 
much work we do on our phones, and I think a lot of women do 
actually start by using this type of technology and in Rural 
Iowa I know of one woman that lived in Southern Iowa. She did 
not have internet access at her home and she lived on a farm 
and so she would drive into her little tiny rural community in 
the evenings and sit outside of the Iowa State Extension Office 
and draw off of their Wi-Fi and do all of her ordering and 
distribution on her phone. So we've got to figure out better 
ways of doing business.
    So thank you very much, really appreciate that. Thank you, 
Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Cardin. Senator Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Welcome all of the panelists and you brought your cheering 
section, I see. So welcome to all of the women in the audience. 
Aloha. [Applause.]
    So for our entire panel, how many of you had trouble 
getting access to capital? Raise your hands.
    [Show of hands.]
    Senator Hirono. So obviously and I bet, yes, I see some 
hands from people in the audience, that that is one of the 
often-cited very practical concerns is access to capital.
    Is there anything more that Congress can do to enable small 
businesses, especially women-owned businesses, to have access 
to capital? Any of you have very specific ideas about what 
Congress can do? Anybody? Go ahead.
    Ms. Koch. Thank you.
    They could access more--the greater loans. They have a 
micro loan that SEED has in our local community. It's only 
$50,000. It's been the same for, as I know, the last 15 years. 
Nothing's changed.
    Then also look at second stage companies. As myself, you 
know, you start out at one point, you need different needs as 
you grow. Let us continue to grow.
    Senator Hirono. Anybody else? Yes, Ms. Sweeney.
    Ms. Sweeney. Yes, thank you.
    The beauty of the WBCs is their ability to provide 
additional resources. There has to be an opportunity to include 
access to capital internally. From micro grants, other private 
funding within Baltimore, there's a huge resource, so an 
ecosystem built on nontraditional funding. Being able to tap 
into those resources and leverage those opportunities within 
the WBC so that it increases access to capital for mentees.
    Senator Hirono. Anyone else with other ideas?
    Ms. Onwuka. Yes, Congresswoman. I would just add that and 
underscore particularly small business in the childcare sector 
that are nonprofits being able to have access to the for-profit 
SBA loans and then broadly I think it's important that women 
are able to keep as much income coming into their households as 
possible and that gets into tax policy but also gets into 
regulatory sides, but that's what I would suggest.
    Senator Hirono. Ms. Somerville, did you want to add 
something?
    Ms. Somerville. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the opportunity 
to share.
    I'd also like the recognizing of larger business and the 
strengthening of the partnerships between the larger business 
and the small business in terms of mentorships. That's another 
way to continue to enable our success.
    Thank you.
    Senator Hirono. I know some of you, I think at least two of 
you have benefited from the mentorship opportunities that were 
provided through the Women Business Centers.
    So was that a very critical aspect of your ability to start 
your businesses, the mentoring? What can we do to increase 
those mentoring opportunities, Ms. Somerville?
    Ms. Somerville. It was truly a significant supporter. I 
think the biggest thing was with the WBC and applying for my 
women-owned certification as a small business was the 
handholding aspect. The flexibility, as the Ranking Member 
Ernst mentioned, that we do a lot of things in the evenings.
    I think they were relentless in being accessible on 
weekends and late evenings and literally enabling me line by 
line, step by step because the process can be extremely 
challenging navigating through that. The support was unyielding 
and I think the flexibility that the program offers in terms of 
accessibility was bar none.
    Senator Hirono. I have visited the Women's Business Center 
in Honolulu and I know that it makes a really big difference.
    One of you mentioned the need to access broadband. I think 
that's very true and that is why some of the funding that we 
provided for this purpose, especially for rural areas, through 
the Infrastructure Bill and others, I think that's going to be 
really critical to enable entrepreneurs in the rural areas of 
our country to be able to sell their products.
    So I think that was Ms. Sweeney who mentioned that. So 
thank you very much.
    I think one of the challenges is the need for affordable 
childcare and our country provides less support for early 
childhood education and childcare than just about any other 
developed country, probably the least, and so there are some 
bills that would provide additional support for access and 
affordability to childcare.
    Would you agree that for the panel that that is an 
important element of enabling business women to--yes, to have 
successful businesses?
    Ms. Koch. It is hard. I lost most of my female workers. It 
was hard for them. We have a training program that we started 
because we partnered with a local organization called COTS. 
They are a nonprofit that helps take women off the street with 
children. They teach them skills and we bring them in and teach 
them how to make wire harnesses and provide a place for them to 
work. If we don't have work, we sub them out to our 
competitors.
    Senator Hirono. And, frankly, the only three countries that 
do worse than us in terms of supporting childcare affordability 
and availability, Ireland, Costa Rica, and Turkey.
    So we need to do a heck of a lot better and there are a 
number of bills that would enable the affordable access to 
childcare, and I think that's something that we need to do for 
the women in our country and I say about time. Do you agree in 
the audience? Go ahead and clap. [Applause.]
    Senator Hirono. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Chairman Cardin. Certainly.
    Senator Hawley.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks 
to the witnesses for being here.
    Ms. Koch, could I just come on to you? I'd like to talk a 
little bit more about your manufacturing background as well as 
about women in the industry.
    Can you just give us a sense of what some of the biggest 
constraints are to success in manufacturing in particular for 
women-owned businesses?
    Ms. Koch. There's not enough women-owned manufacturers to 
get mentorships from, but the things that are hurting us today 
are the employee rates, the finding the good talent, learning--
I didn't have a manufacturing background. I had a marketing 
background. I just had a passion on making things. So I did.
    But there's a lot of--we need help with capital, being able 
to get to that next step. I've been presented to companies that 
wanted to do work with us but I couldn't get the funding or 
they thought we were too small and we do work with all the 
automotive companies, but, you know, to get to the next level 
is difficult, especially in this field of manufacturing.
    Senator Hawley. Absolutely. Let me just ask you about an 
issue in your industry, in the manufacturing industry, which is 
offshoring, particularly with regard to China.
    I'm just curious if the offshoring of our manufacturing 
capacity to China over decades now has created any challenges 
for you that you see, whether that's in the educational 
pipeline as it were that we used to have in this country that 
we've now lost in many instances because now those jobs have 
gone overseas and so now we don't have the education to train 
workers any longer or whether it's other things.
    I'm just curious about your firsthand experience.
    Ms. Koch. Okay. I can talk about the education piece.
    Senator Hawley. Please.
    Ms. Koch. STEM. Okay. I'm heavily believing that STEM is 
very important right now. It's where the future of 
manufacturing is. It's where the future of the jobs are. So we 
have to start early in our schools partnering with 
manufacturing companies, letting us bring them in early, at an 
early stage, also have mentoring and good programs to start 
with children at early ages, even in elementary, to show how 
important STEM is.
    Today, even just in the female sector, 29 percent of women 
of the whole STEM industries are holding those positions. 
That's still very low in this day and age.
    Senator Hawley. Yeah. Yes, thank you for that. You talked 
about the need to cut red tape and reform the procurement 
process, and I'm just wondering if you have any specific 
recommendations for this committee that maybe we could help 
with when it comes to that.
    Ms. Koch. Navigating the system is difficult. You can get 
certified as a WOSB through our local chapters and our local 
thanks to WBENC and our local Great Lakes Women's Business 
Council.
    However, once you get certified, then you go to the system 
and there you just get a runaround. If you ever try to go get 
into their--you have to go hunt and find the contract and then 
when you get the contract, the language is so difficult to 
understand because it's a military language, it doesn't break 
it down to what we're used to in the industries.
    So I think that the other thing is that having more of a 
networking group where you bring your procurement agents to 
some of our events to find us, help connect those procurements, 
the purchasing to see what we do, that would really help. They 
have events all the time through WeBack where women bring and 
show their products. Why isn't the military, why isn't the 
government there?
    Senator Hawley. Very good. Thank you very much. Thanks to 
all of the witnesses for being here.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Cardin. Senator Hickenlooper.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Madam Ranking 
Member.
    I thank all of you, the entire audience for being here, but 
especially you being on the firing line here.
    I had the great fortune. I was an entrepreneur that had a 
very hard time raising money to build my first brew pub, a 
restaurant that brewed its own beer. I got turned down by 33 
banks and I was just trying to get $50,000. You know, no one 
knew what it was back then, but the process, the bank that 
finally took the risk on me was a women's bank, which I thought 
was ironic. [Applause.]
    Senator Hickenlooper. But they understood the concept of 
doing something that someone hadn't done before and they also 
understood the challenge of having to deal with the bureaucracy 
that we often find.
    I think we're in a global competition in terms of 
technology and innovation. I think whether you're talking about 
climate change, whether you're talking about quantum computing 
or artificial intelligence, we need all hands on deck and we 
cannot leave a large portion of our population not part of the 
effort, and I think it's going to have to be a national effort. 
I think you're all working in different aspects of this that 
really are important and going to bear fruit.
    It's not a question of fairness and making sure people get 
good jobs. That's great. That's very important. But the nation 
needs everyone to be committed to this effort because we are in 
this incredible competition.
    So, Ms. Somerville, let me just ask and, you know, roughly 
25 percent of all our innovation firms are led by women. I 
think that's a generous estimate. How can the SBA better 
implement education programs among its resource partners to 
provide young women with the hands-on training to develop tech 
businesses and to support innovation?
    Ms. Somerville. Thank you for that question, sir.
    One of the things I think we focus on in my company is 
internships, partnering with academic institutions to develop 
curriculum that will enable individual students from high 
school and college to apply the academic piece in the real 
world, so looking at what those technical competencies are 
needed in the real world and infusing them in the academic 
curriculum, and then offering those internships sponsorship, 
ally ships, mentorships, if you will.
    We also integrate in terms of being keynote speakers to 
tell many students what it's like in the real world. We sponsor 
a lot of STEM events which is also good in terms of IT because 
one of the things we've been able to do is to with the 
resources we receive from WBC and other partners was to build 
out our IT infrastructure so we can employ people and educate 
people throughout the nation.
    We even have an employee in a teeny tiny home in the middle 
of Colorado somewhere, very rural area, and so it actually 
works, but exciting, our youth, about the opportunity and 
giving them opportunities to demonstrate that and partnering 
with academic institutions, podcasts, being very relevant and 
relatable with today and STEM is definitely, as mentioned 
earlier, it's key in terms of our IT infrastructure.
    Believe it or not, that mentorship goes both ways because 
we learn from the amazing bright future leaders of women and 
young men in our communities. So the future looks bright and 
when we get out there and have that outreach opportunity, but 
it starts with the academic institutions, sir.
    Senator Hickenlooper. I love your emphasis on 
apprenticeships and partnering with those. I think you all at 
various times in your materials support that and, you know, the 
Department of Labor has apprenticeships. I mean, Commerce has 
apprenticeships. Everyone's got apprenticeships but no one's 
really focusing on making that a national movement because I 
think especially for people that are from lower income 
backgrounds apprenticeships allow them to have those models.
    In Colorado, I was partners in a project with a woman named 
Joyce Meskis who started the Tattered Cover Bookstore which was 
the most amazing bookstore any of us had ever seen, and she 
told me one time, she said the hardest thing was I didn't have 
any role models as a woman entrepreneur. There was no one I 
could go and hang out with and she said, you know, if I hang 
out with the guys, they didn't treat me as a guy, you know, and 
I think that's something we too often overlook.
    Ms. Sweeney, research shows that women are less likely to 
choose being entrepreneurs and that there's a resistance there, 
largely it is because they don't encounter other women 
entrepreneurs.
    So what type of public/private partnerships should we think 
about expanding to foster an environment where we create an 
ecosystem where women have more access to mentors?
    Ms. Sweeney. Well, a good example of that is actually the 
Baltimore Metro Women's Business Center because they are 
connected to Morgan State. So they are right there amidst other 
programs that have already launched. Their entrepreneurial 
programs are designed for college students and they have 
extended beyond that to high school students.
    For us particularly, we're a partner. We take on summer 
youth workers and now we're moving into taking in youth workers 
throughout the entire year starting in the fall.
    So it goes back to some of those partnerships that was 
mentioned earlier that we get into not just the high schools 
and colleges but we start working our way through middle 
schools and we can build from the WBC because of all the 
partners that they're leveraging so that we can begin to have 
real world experiences and I'll say I'm a 10K SB alum, as well.
    So that partnership already there has a built-in system to 
help us to continue to help the next generation of 
entrepreneurs.
    Senator Hickenlooper. All right. Well, I'm out of time but 
not out of heart and I love what you guys have all done. I 
think it's inspirational and delighted to see ways we can help 
expand and accelerate the progress you all have made.
    Yield back to the Chair.
    Chairman Cardin. Senator Rosen's timing is just perfect. 
Senator Ernst has already mentioned, several of you have 
mentioned one of the initiatives that we have taken to expand 
the tools of the SBA for childcare businesses, nonprofits, and 
I want to congratulate Senator Ernst for her leadership on that 
and Senator Rosen for her leadership on that, and we're now 
joined by Senator Rosen.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 
Member Ernst, for your patience. We were in a Homeland Security 
markup. We just finished and I ran over. So I appreciate your 
timing and thank you all for being here today.
    Obviously we're here talking about women-owned businesses 
and I'm going to talk, of course, about my state Nevada and in 
Nevada, women make up 45 percent of all businesses throughout 
the state which is equivalent to more than 80,000 small 
businesses that are women-owned.
    In fact, Nevada has led the nation in women-owned 
businesses for the last decade and so I'm so proud of all the 
women entrepreneurs and I want to see women-owned businesses 
increase in the years to come and so one way to ensure that 
increases is to prioritize, of course, the proper resources for 
women and other underserved communities and so it's why I 
introduced the Minority Entrepreneurship Grant Program with 
Senator Tillis and this legislation would establish a minority 
entrepreneurship grant program at SBA.
    It's going to award grants to minority-serving 
institutions, historically black colleges and universities to 
promote and increase opportunities for minority student 
business ownership and entrepreneurship.
    So, Ms. Sweeney, can you speak to the resources that you 
utilized to start your business and how did you hear about them 
and what do you wish you had known or had available to you so 
we can maybe potentiate that? Ms. Sweeney?
    Ms. Sweeney. Thank you, Senator.
    I've benefited greatly right at the start of the pandemic 
from the Baltimore Metro WBC. That connection was pivotal for 
us being able to be able to strategize what our next step would 
be at a time of great uncertainty.
    So I was thankful that I knew about the WBC, but what wish 
I knew before, before I jumped into entrepreneurship that I had 
a mentor prior to. So a lot of our initial meetings was to 
clean up some of what needed to be cleaned up.
    So the first step, of course, is how important it is when a 
woman is ready to start a business, how connecting with the WBC 
is so important from the entrepreneur education perspective.
    Thank you.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. I do agree. Mentors make all the 
difference in so many things, so many things.
    Next, I want to move on to reducing burdens for our small 
business owners, something that I think you all know about, as 
well, and because there's many factors, as we know, that go 
into starting a small business, develop your business plan, you 
register your business, you have to understand perhaps your 
compliance requirements, and, of course, so much more, 
depending on what type of business it is.
    I've heard from Nevadans about the complex process of 
starting their businesses and not fully knowing every operating 
requirement to ensure their business is up to par for their 
state standards.
    So it's important that the Federal Government creates a 
streamlined process for Americans to work through the 
oftentimes bureaucratic red tape to start a small business more 
easily. It's why I introduced The One Stop Shop for Small 
Business Licensing. It's going to require the SBA to create a 
central website for licensing and business permit information. 
All these materials kind of in the wish you had known before 
you started category.
    So again, Ms. Sweeney, can you speak about your experience 
in getting the proper licensing and permit requirements and how 
difficult was it and what else do you think we can do to 
streamline a little bit?
    Ms. Sweeney. Thank you. Because we are medical, we are part 
medical, so there's a lot of compliance around Medicaid, 
Medicare. The biggest piece, as you mentioned, is not just 
being able to go to a website because you have access to the 
site.
    Senator Rosen. Right.
    Ms. Sweeney. So what has helped me specifically has been 
mentorship within the State of Maryland and that mentoring has 
actually come through some of our managed care organizations, 
our direct contact with our partners, like Aetna, like Notre 
Dame School of Pharmacy.
    So what I think of and in my experience, wouldn't it be 
awesome, especially with the burden of health care right now, 
if there was actually a committee in place or an infrastructure 
in place that would help people who are interested in tapping 
into health care to be able to navigate the compliance much 
better and we know then we would see a huge increase in 
especially small business owners that would be willing to tap 
into Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement which means more 
support for communities that need it the most.
    Senator Rosen. Well, thank you. I appreciate especially 
working on the workforce, skilled nursing, long-term care, all 
of those things, we're all going to need it.
    Thank you again, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member, appreciate 
it.
    Chairman Cardin. Senator Ernst.
    Senator Rosen. Okay. Yes. I just want to expand upon that 
because so many members of the committee have asked about 
mentorship and I want to make sure that once again I highlight 
The SCORE Act of 2023 which is seeking to strengthen mentorship 
and coaching opportunities for women, especially in our rural 
communities.
    Cathy, Ms. Koch, in your experience, what obstacles do 
women small business owners face when it comes to accessing the 
mentorship program and especially maybe in some of the rural 
communities?
    Ms. Koch. Well, I did not know where to find one. Access to 
female mentors that understand my challenges, my challenges 
from the time I started my company to the challenges that I 
still face today as a growing manufacturer.
    I need mentors that are more like someone said earlier. I 
had a lot of male mentors early on because that's all there 
were and I didn't even know there was such a thing as a coach. 
I didn't have access to that. Today I do.
    Senator Ernst. So did you--I'm sorry to interrupt, Ms. 
Koch. Did you have experience with The SCORE Program?
    Ms. Koch. Yes, I did early on and it was--so then it was--
they paired me up with an engineer that was, you know, a 
retired engineer. I was young in my career. He didn't 
understand anything about running a business and he didn't 
understand anything I was trying to ask or say. It was so 
embarrassing for me that I just gave up.
    Senator Ernst. Okay. And that's unfortunate and I think 
it's important to point out when we do have failures in the 
system and then how do we correct those failures and I think 
that's why it's important that we continually take a look at 
The SCORE Program and make sure that we're meeting the right 
fit with the needs of the individuals that are accessing the 
program.
    I want to close with just a final question about childcare 
and maybe you can just share your story, as well, because I 
know probably a number of you have struggled with childcare and 
many in our audience and even as a young worker, I would take 
my daughter to work after hours because we didn't have access 
to nontraditional times and I think we need to modify the way 
we think about childcare because not everybody works a 9 to 5 
position and having access afterhours or before school, a lot 
of that is really important.
    But as a single mother with a young toddler when you were 
working, what obstacles did you face when you were starting 
your business?
    Ms. Koch. Finding the affordable childcare, so that's why 
she came to work with me. After school programs that I felt 
were good for her, not just a daycare, you know, options, 
something that she could still excel and learn in. Even though 
bringing her to work with me, I felt like, you know, now I 
learned later in life because my daughter is now a--she's a 
chemical engineer and she is now a partner at one of the 
largest consulting firms and a young mother and she's a female 
partner.
    So to me, it was probably bringing her here was--now I look 
back and think it was probably good for her to see a role 
model. However, you know, I felt guilty when I was at work and 
she was with me working and I was not paying attention to her.
    So having those programs are so important and they're also 
important for my employees. I said earlier we partnered with 
this program to bring women off the streets and teaching them. 
Part of the problem is when we pay them a salary and we pay 
twice the amount of our local Michigan wages to start with no 
experience and they still can't afford childcare.
    Senator Ernst. Wow! That is incredible.
    Patrice Onwuka, you had mentioned earlier, as well, 
thinking about childcare differently. If you could just help 
close us out on how we should think differently about 
childcare.
    Ms. Onwuka. Absolutely. Thank you, Ranking Member.
    Childcare is so important to women and women small business 
owners because many small business owners have children and 
they're trying to balance how they can raise their kids but 
they're also employing, as my colleague here mentioned on the 
panel, they're employing workers who need childcare and so, 
Number 1, I think we want to be careful about suggesting that 
there should be a one size fits all solution to childcare.
    I think daycare centers are one form of childcare. You also 
have in-home-based childcare that a lot of parents would rather 
have someone in a home that they trust than, you know, 
necessarily a daycare center. So we want to make sure that 
there is many different types of options as possible and I 
think you can do that through the Tax Code. I think you can do 
that through, you know, different acts.
    We talked about the Small Business Childcare Investment 
Act. I think that's a really smart way of looking at it and 
then ensuring that the SBA provides those resources as a 
clearinghouse to where employers can find information about 
different childcare options and resources to offer at their 
centers.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, 
Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Cardin. I want to thank again our four witnesses 
and thank those that are in attendance for what you do every 
day to help entrepreneurship in America.
    Senator Ernst and I recognize we have a responsibility as 
the Chair and Ranking Member of the Small Business Committee to 
modernize and update and oversight the small business laws of 
our nation and unfortunately that hasn't been done for a long 
time.
    So some of the issues that you are referring to, such as 
micro loan caps or some of the issues concerning oversight of 
The SCORE Program, Congress has not acted on these areas for a 
long, long time. The same thing with the financing tools, we 
haven't done that.
    Well, we're determined to exercise our roles as legislators 
in that regard and we've already started that process. We 
started that process with the passage last week of 12 bills. 
One of those bills dealt with the financing issues by 
recognizing we need permanency with mission lenders, with the 
Community Advantage Program, and modernizing the 504 Program.
    So we are taking steps to try to respond to many of the 
concerns that you have already expressed.
    We talked a lot about childcare. Childcare is absolutely 
essential for women to be able to enter the workforce and 
become entrepreneurs and so we have taken steps to remove the 
disqualification of childcare businesses from participating in 
the SBA financing tools.
    So we are taking those steps and there's several others 
that we've already looked at.
    You've made a lot of really good suggestions that we are 
going to absolutely take a look at. The SCORE Program, we need 
to make sure that we have mentors that are contemporary with 
the needs that are out there and your example points out that 
there's improvement that needs to be made. We need a mentoring 
program, as some of you have pointed out, extremely important 
to your successful start up of business, but let's make sure 
that the program is done correctly.
    Women's Business Centers are absolutely essential and 
you've pointed out that, yes, there is a difficulty in figuring 
out how to deal with the tools that are available through the 
SBA, but then when you get to the private sector, which is 
another important source for help for small businesses, women 
are at a tremendous disadvantage and the Women's Business 
Centers can make a big difference.
    I just want to point out to my Ranking Member four years 
ago we had no Women's Business Centers in the Baltimore Region 
and Baltimore was our largest city in Maryland. We now have a 
center located at Morgan State University and it makes a huge 
difference.
    We also have one at Bowie, I might say. They happen to be 
HBCUs, but connecting to a college campus allows us to connect 
to mentors. It allows us to deal with some of the technical 
needs that businesses need by connecting the dots and having 
the programs available.
    So it's important to update the Women's Business Center 
laws to make sure that we have the resources to take care of 
the people of Iowa as well as the people of Maryland.
    So it's past time that we look at how we can exercise our 
responsibilities as legislators to update these laws.
     I might tell you the Administration took steps in the 
Rules. We think we have responsibilities to make sure that 
there is legislative oversight and so we also want to make sure 
that we don't go a long period of time without us reviewing and 
we also want to make sure that as we allow lenders into our 
program that there's protection for the public from 
unscrupulous-type lending practices.
    So all of that is part of our responsibility and we think 
we are making progress.
    Contracting reform is desperately needed. Many of you have 
mentioned that. I understand the DoD has a foreign language in 
their rules and we really do need to be able to allow the 
access from small businesses, women-owned small businesses to 
be able to access government contracting in an easier way.
    You don't have the large staff that can get you through 
those types of challenges. The resource partners help you, but 
we also have to make sure that the agency helps you. So these 
are all part of what we're trying to do on contracting reform.
    The bottom line is the suggestions that you have made here 
will help us in our process in our reauthorization of these 
programs and we thank you very much, the four witnesses plus 
the people that are in the room. You're invited back again. 
[Applause.]
    Chairman Cardin. Thank you all very much.
    The Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:20 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

      

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