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Justin Brady: From the Jethro’s Barbecue Studio, this is the Iowa Business Podcast, and it’s Small Business. Week. I don’t know if you know this, but Small Business Week is kinda engineered and supported by the SBA, Small Business Administration. And what… This sound, maybe this sounds stupid, but I’ll, I’ll out myself. I’ll out myself. I don’t know what the-SBA does, and I don’t know what the current figures are, and they do have some new programs that you should be aware of as well around food and food supply chain, which is fascinating. And so who better to talk about that than Regional Administrator Brad Zaun? Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Brad Zaun: an honor to be here

Justin Brady: Yeah, happy to see you again. The, You’ve been on years ago on the Iowa Podcast. You and Senator Nate Boulton of the time both were discussing this school choice issue. There are different names for it, But yeah, And that was a-um, for… We’ll, we’ll get into the show obviously, but for those who haven’t seen that, we’ll link that in the show notes because it was one of the more encouraging political discussions I’ve ever heard. Because you both had, were Very different. sides of this issue, but the respect you had for each other was so encouraging, and I wish more, uh, people in, that hold federal office would follow both of your

Brad Zaun: I agree with you. Yeah.

Justin Brady: Thank you. Yeah. I, I wish-we could see more of that. Uh, before we get started everybody, we really appreciate, uh, Denton’s Davis Brown for being a sponsor of this show. If you wanna hear from Beth Coonan, she was talking about the impact of talent retention and how she is able to see what’s coming down the pike there, like who is about ready to leave and why. She can help you erase those issues. Smart, smart individual. Also, Kaylee t-was talking about immigration in your office and how you may think you’re compliant, but you might not be for some really easy to overlook stuff. And then Jason over there was talking about 2026 being actually really Good. for M&A deals. Most people think 2021 was the hot year, which it was, but now M&A deals are focused more on quality. So check all that out at Iowapodcast.com/business. I don’t think this is a dumb que-Maybe this is a… dumb question, Administr-Ad-Administrator Zaun, but I wanna start with w-uh, what does the SBA do? And before we get into that, also I guess congratulations are in order ’cause now you’re also acting regional administrator for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois. Are you just gonna take over-the whole country?

Brad Zaun: no, no. Uh, one of my colleagues got promoted and so I’m excited for him and, and this is just gonna be a temporary deal for, you know, several months probably.

Justin Brady: because-you offi-I think you office in Iowa, right?

Brad Zaun: do, in Des Moines. Does

Justin Brady: we can just funnel all SBA resources from all those states into Iowa and just cut them all off?

Brad Zaun: No. Um, you know, obviously, uh, a lot of those decisions are made at headquarters. Yeah. Uh, and are… You know, so, um, but no, I mean, I lead the team of our district offices, uh, you know, in certainly the, the Region 7, which is the Great Plains region, and that includes Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, uh, and Missouri. And, uh, so we just got great people there. But, uh, I’m, you know, I’m really, um, y-your opening was, “What does the SBA do?” I’m really here to talk to anyone out there that wants to own a business or any businesses that are out there that wanna expand. Obviously, the focus of the Trump administration is several. Made in America, uh, we certainly have a concentration on manufacturing, uh, but every business, uh, with a focus of rural parts of the United States, which I think is great because of, you know, you go through a lot of smaller communities, they’re struggling, and so we’re trying to deploy as much cash as we can. Um, obviously, one thing that maybe your listeners don’t know is we don’t loan directly. We loan through community banks is what we do. And, uh, all of the services that we have, and any of your listeners that have, uh, you wanna expand or have a dream to own a business, um, we offer all of our services, uh, uh, for free. People don’t realize that. So we could help you with projections through our small business development centers, which, uh, there is a dozen in the state of Iowa. Usually, they’re around a community college. It’s something that we partner with community colleges. Um, but we have so many different services. We’ve got SCORE, which is a, a group of retirees that are business owners that counsel people. Uh, I mentioned the small business, uh, development centers. And then, you know, we’ve got Apex to help people, uh, get an info-you know, if they wanna do business with large corporations or governmental entities. Um, it’s just a great thing, and I would have to even tell you, Justin, you know, I had a dream when I was 23 to own a hardware store. Uh, it was a store that was going out of business in Urbandale And which is a suburb of Des Moines, and I ended up getting an SBA guaranteed loan. What the SBA does is we guarantee loans through the banks. Um, at that time, I got a 60% guarantee. Uh, we usually around 60% to 70% guarantees. The food, uh, the food production thing that we’ll talk about, the loans that are there-Yeah um, is at 90%. So what it really does is, you know, obviously I always tell people it doesn’t really matter what your religion is, the color of your skin, your sexual orientation, there’s only one thing we really need to have is a, is a really g-a decent, uh, credit score. Um, so you know, keep that in mind if that’s what you’re thinking about doing. But we just guarantee the loans, so it makes it so much easier for the banks. And we’re going through a lot of changes. We’ve been through a lot of changes. Right now we’ve got a pilot throughout the United States, because you’ll hear from our community lending partners that listen, “Oh, it’s, you know, really hard to process a loan. There’s a lot of pap-paperwork that’s, uh, required.” We’re going through the process right now, looking at duplication and maybe some documents that aren’t needed. Uh, and we’re gonna roll that out probably by the end of summer. So it’s gonna be a lot easier to get loans, and the timing is probably couldn’t be any better if you are a business that wanna expand or even someone that’s got the dream to own the business like I did when I was 23. Correct.

Justin Brady: And so you were appointed by the president to run this, and one of the priorities was to help reduce red tape for small business owners. Because for those who haven’t done it, I mean, I’ve done it. I’ve created a few businesses and-I, I, I’ve picked industries that are a little easier to start really, really quickly. But when you start to get into property or you start to get into certain regulated industries, healthcare, restaurants, any service industries, all of a sudden, poof, overnight, there are all these like… I think we had Scott Carlson in here. He’s the owner of Americana that closed. Of course, he owns Gilroy’s Now-And he said the red tape we have, the regulations we have, like, uh, and I don’t know. to what degree this is, but he said the, the, the regulations and safety regulations we have to follow are just as thick as some hospitals. And I’m like-“That’s crazy.” So has there been progress on eliminating a lot of this red tape?

Brad Zaun: I am so glad you brought that up because it was something I wanted to discuss. We’ve got the Office of Advocacy that’s really been stagnant, uh, in the previous administrations, but has been rum-ramped up. You know, of course, President Trump wants to grow the economy. He’s a businessman, which is helpful. His marching orders to us at the SBA, through the Office of Advocacy, is to cut red tape. Um, we’ve cut a lot of red tape, but here’s what I want to tell your listeners. If there’s a business, and it could be the, the owner of Gilroy’s, which by the way is a good place.

Justin Brady: good

Brad Zaun: but anyway, uh, you could contact myself or our district office, no matter where they, where they’re at, and we will put them in touch with whatever that challenge is with any federal agency. So, you know, you don’t have… You know, I’ve been in several different businesses, and it seems like sometimes you get a little Barney Fife guy that’s an

Justin Brady: Yep.

Brad Zaun: that just loves to write all those kind of citations to you. The reason why this office has been really ramped up is to bring both parties together, so obviously the owner of the business and whatever federal, uh, agency that is. Could be the EPA, it could be OSHA, it could be the IRS, and we wanna bring people together and try to come up with a solution. Obviously, we wanna make sure that we protect the environment. We wanna make sure that the work environment is safe. But there seems to be, uh, uh, through the years, and as a small business person myself, I mean, I just got tired of all the regulations and all the red tape. So it is a priority, and I encourage all your listeners to get ahold of their local Small Business Administration office, no matter what state they’re from, the district office, and reach out and certainly send me an email. I, I mean, I’ll connect you with the right people, so we could come to some common sense and try to reduce that burden on the small businesses.

Justin Brady: Yeah, I mean… so my–I had a friend in healthcare, I mean, they’re still in healthcare, but they were mentioning every time they wrote a script, there–they had to… There was a tax to pay when they wrote a script, and then some regulating body said, “Actually, we’re gonna outsource that. This organization is going to do it now,” and then they had to pay a tax to this organization, and then that organization ceased to exist, but the tax stayed there, and the regulatory. hurdle stayed there. So these things just build over time, and most people don’t know how to navigate this stuff. Now, the larger, uh, the medium-sized, larger-sized, um, listeners that we have, CEOs of larger Organizations. they have legal departments for this stuff. It’s not really that hard For them. But for small-business owners like myself, I have to go pay a couple thousand dollars or $10,000 to navigate some of this stuff. I can do that, But startups that are in negative-cash flow for the first two years cannot do

Brad Zaun: I agree with you. What I’m

Justin Brady: is-Just call us we can–this is literally how simple it is. I don’t have to fill in a form. I don’t have to wait in a line. I just call you, and you just

Brad Zaun: a-we actually have on our website, it’s called the Red Tape Hotline, that you could actually call and people answer within 30 seconds, and there’s also an email link to put on whatever your challenges are that you have with any federal regulations. The other thing is the Office of Advocacy has been working with local governments as well, so zoning issues or, you know, uh, you know, uh, you know, whatever those issues are. I can’t make any promises, but I promise this: we will listen, and we’ll do everything we can to come to some kind of resolution that’s agreed upon by both parties.

Justin Brady: Yeah, ’cause y-again, it’s n-you can’t just fix everything. There are going to be some things, it’s like, “Well, I wanna sell meth.” You’re like, “Well, Okay. There, Okay. hold on.

Brad Zaun: All right. A certain line cannot cross.”

Justin Brady: cross.” So I, I, I totally get it. Um, one of the things you brought up is rural businesses, and for those that aren’t trying to start a small business in a rural i-i-a rural area, there are some challenges that come with that as well. What are some of the, the datasets, or what’s some of the progress you’re making in rural business? Oh.

Brad Zaun: the biggest thing that we’re concentrate on now is expand the lending partners that we have, because it seems like there’s a trend that’s always the larger banks that’ll process SBA loans. As I mentioned to you, uh, we’re–we know that’s a challenge, and that’s why we wanna cut some of the paperwork trail that’s required with these SBA loans. We’re also having conversations with credit unions as well, and there’s also, uh, a couple companies in the state of Iowa that is not a bank that will do the process of the paperwork, uh, in regards to any SBA loans as well, and then they partner with a lending, you know, a l-of the lenders, what they do.

Justin Brady: Yeah. so… the challenge here is that for established businesses, it may be a bit easier for them to go get a loan, right? It’s established, they have revenue. Um, for a venture fun-a venture capital startup or well-funded startup, it might be easier for them Because they already… have established processes, they have backing. But for that little sweet spot of people who’ve started something, Don’t really have much history to show, Generally banks aren’t gonna give them money. And so-to make this very clear for small business owners, you said you’re not a bank, and then they’re probably like, Then how do we get loans from you? That doesn’t make any sense.” What you do, to clarify, and correct me if I’m wrong If there’s some important nuance here, but what you’re saying is that we go to the regional banks that are gonna loan you the money and say, “Hey, we’ll vouch for this person up to 90%,” in, in some cases. There are different percentages. Right. So if they default or if they can’t pay back the loan, we will guarantee that loan and pay it back. So this makes the local lenders and local banks more apt to Donate. Or donate, to lend to these small businesses, right?

Brad Zaun: We’re basically a cosigner is what we

Justin Brady: a good way to

Brad Zaun: And, uh, you know, obviously the what I… The encouragement I… Again, I wanna repeat what I said, is once you go through one of our small business development centers, they have access to, like when I had my hardware store, you’re gonna have 3,000 square feet, this is what you should expect based on the inventory you put in the store, uh, per year, per square foot in revenue. And they have access to all that. I will tell you that banks are really, really, happy when they get the projections from a small business development center. It just gives it… Yes, because they have the, they have the, uh, the access to all the information for literally thousands of different businesses on what you should expect based on what they’ve already seen happen in whatever certain industry that is. So, you know, obviously I would encourage everyone to go to their small business development center. In the metropolitan area, we’ve got one in Windsor Heights. Um, but what I would just… It, it just gives them credibility when they get in front of the bank with their projections if it’s something coming from the Small Business Administration or the Small Business Development Center. We don’t do that in our district office here in Des Moines, but we’ve got about a dozen here in the state of Iowa that will assist people with that.

Justin Brady: data and the research can be a bit tricky if you don’t know what you’re looking

Brad Zaun: I was young. I mean, I didn’t know. Well, I’m gonna buy… You know, get this store that’s going out of business. Of course, I was gonna say that the sales were gonna triple the first year. You can go into a bank and they’ll say, “Yeah, right,” you know? But once you have the data behind yourself with the assistance of what we do and what we offer, um, you’re more likely to get the loan. And, and the other thing is our SBDC centers, if we see a business that just isn’t gonna cashflow, we’re probably just gonna say, “It’s not gonna work.” I mean, we’re gonna be honest with

Justin Brady: Yeah. right. Yeah, because it’s–I mean, this is not the best example. It, it–There’s some similarities, but if you’ve ever seen “Shark Tank,” they don’t buy vision. They can’t see the vision, and honestly, they don’t care because they’re like, “There needs to be some validation there,” validation through data, numbers, sales, something. And so this is what you’re looking for, and this is what banks are looking for, and you can get the business owner to that point where they have some of that data and validation. You mentioned this earlier. You mentioned food, and I know there’s a new food production program out of the SBA. Break this down for us, ’cause this is fascinating, and I also wanna know what’s behind

Brad Zaun: I can answer that question real easy. Um, it’s a food processing loan, uh, that we have under our Mark Loan, which is focused kinda more towards manufacturing Uh, what this–Uh, and I didn’t bring the list of all the different… Basically, here’s what I tell: restaurants do not qualify for this. But anything that’s in food manufacturing, food production, anything that touches food, and obviously what’s generating the most media is grocery stores. We know that there’s a lot of communities that don’t have grocery stores. Um, the reason why we’re doing it is to expand a lot of the meat processing, meat processors’, uh, competition for the four, the big four. I’ve got a plant in Nebraska, Tyson pa-plant, that is shutting down, uh, that has forty-two hundred employees, and it’s a population of ten thousand people. So it’s gonna devastate that community. Um, so we’re d-we’ve got different programs we’re trying to help out there. But what we wanna do, and we’ve w-we’re going to all fifty states, I’ve done three states, I still have Kansas to do, where we’re bringing the s-the smaller meat processors that are there and talking to them about expanding. Obviously, it’s about affordability. We all know that food is high right now, um, and we’re trying to get more competition in there so that, you know, obviously, so it’s better for the consumer. And, uh, so I’m really excited about that. It is a ninety percent guarantee. Obviously, our guarantees are guaranteed by the taxpayers in the United States, so we gotta be very careful, like I mentioned, about credit ratings and that kind of stuff. But we’ve seen a lot of interest, uh, in this, uh, new program that we have.

Justin Brady: But-Is the, is it focused on just increasing access to food? Is it focused on food deserts? Is it kind of all of the

Brad Zaun: I’d say yes. Yes.

Justin Brady: Yeah. So help us understand then, ’cause it covers grocery, if you’re a grocery operation. Is this… I, I would a-assume it’s also for, like, small… If someone’s focusing on, like, a small neighborhood grocery entity of some kind, like they want to resell meat from Iowa farmers, or They wanna resell-local produce or something, something like that would also qualify for this?

Brad Zaun: Mm-hmm. Anything that’s food related in a manufacturing process. So obviously, um, it… I, I didn’t bring the codes all with me. There’s, there’s probably forty different businesses, uh, manufacturing companies that could qualify for this loan.

Justin Brady: Goodness gracious. Okay. And so this is because of we have rising food prices. We ha-we have a lot of food issues coming at the same time.

Brad Zaun: Well, I would say this. It was probably started, and I speculate on this, uh, because of the big four meatpackers. Um, I, I don’t believe that they’re, they’re playing fair. Uh, you know, obviously to the producers, uh, that are, that are bringing, uh, their, you know, their animals into these meat processors. And it can be poultry. I mean, it doesn’t have to be cattle or whatever. But, um, so I, I speculate that the reason why is because… I, you know, I can get myself in trouble on this, but I mean, I don’t think the big four, uh, play fair. Mm. And, uh, so we wanna get competition out there. I think competition’s always good.

Justin Brady: It’s always good for

Brad Zaun: Yeah. And, uh, so that’s, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish.

Justin Brady: So there’s a little regulatory, maybe a little regulatory capture problem in food right now. Uh, yes.

Brad Zaun: I’ve–I hear that at all these meat processing roundtables that we do, and we’re trying to fix some of those challenges that are there.

Justin Brady: so the SBA may be an advocate to help bring a little balance there.

Brad Zaun: We are through our Office of Advocacy. Yeah.

Justin Brady: and so I know one of the issues, we just had, um, I think it was Zach Lane in here. I wanna… I think that’s who brought it up. Uh, I could be wrong. If it was someone else, I’m so sorry. But, um, talking about how it’s a challenge for Iowa farmers who are making pork or beef to sell directly, because there are state and federal regulations that ban direct sale. And so I, I actually remember this. I’m not gonna call out who it was, but I used to buy meat from a buddy, and from the locker or wherever he had it made, there was a stamp on that said, “Not for sale,” or something like that. And he’s like, “You’re just paying me for my work. Don’t disclose where you…” I mean, I’m like, “Why does this feel like a drug deal? I’m just buying from an Iowa farmer.” So is this one of those things that you’re working

Brad Zaun: I think it’s very important that all of our food products are inspected You know, obviously if you talk to anybody at a meat locker somewhere, they’ve got to have USDA inspector there-Yes and to make sure that everything is done correctly. So we don’t wanna, we don’t want, like I mentioned, we don’t wanna weaken the quality. But, you know, if you talk to anybody that’s a producer of hogs or, or cattle or whatever, uh, the amount of money that they give to the, whatever the production facility is, meat locker or whatever that is, versus how much it’s sold for is huge. Mm. And, uh, that’s where I think competition would be better. You know, when we have our round tables, we have smaller and medium size, uh, 20 to 40 to 60 employee, uh, meat processors that are out there that are coming and they’re saying, you know, that obviously we want them to expand. We have the tools to do that, to help them with their capital. And, uh, so that’s really, a-again, it’s all about trying to drive down the price of food so it’s more affordable, maybe help out the producers more because we know that they’ve got a very thin

Justin Brady: outside.

Brad Zaun: And, uh, so I-I’ve got meat in my lo-in my freezer right now it says, “Not for sale.” And, uh, so that’s how my wife and I buy all of our beef. And c-and, and, and certainly a lot of pork as well.

Justin Brady: Plus it… gives, uh, a little bit of economic flexibility, ’cause if you have just everyone’s relying on just a few major larger entities and they take a hit or there’s an economic problem or… There’s some-issue, um, they can’t, we can’t absorb that as much. But if you have a lot of independent producers filling gaps, you can ebb and… There’s more ebb and flow-The, the economy. is more resilient. Yep.

Brad Zaun: I agree.

Justin Brady: Um, tell me a little bit about… what kind of patterns are you seeing? Well, like, what businesses are knocking on your door most? Do you see areas that are, like, really high growth areas? What do you see?

Brad Zaun: Well, I… Hi. We’re seeing a lot of growth, uh, in the region that I represent, which is the four states that, uh, I represent full-time, and well, I’ll be doing that full-time aft-you know, with my addition. But, um, about a 12% growth in loans. Um, regards, I would say, you know, manufacturing is really expanding right now. Uh, we, uh, the Small Business Administration, just to let your, uh, listeners know, we cap out at 500 employees or less. Okay. So we don’t do the larger corporations. A lot of corporations that we loan to. Um, but I, you know, I, I see growth in the rural parts of the states. Uh, I wouldn’t say there’s one particular industry, um, that, that, uh, that stands out right now, but I do know manufacturing. Obviously, we’ve got a very aggressive Uh, program that we’ve got out, which is called the Mark Loan, uh, for manufacturers. And as I mentioned when we started, I mean, the concentration is made in America. We cannot be reliant on, uh, you know, on products that we’ve gotta get, uh, that’s outside of the United States. We kinda learned a lesson during COVID with all that. But, uh, so that’s, that’s… I, I just don’t know. I don’t see a trend. All I see is a trend upward. I see optimism. I will tell you that I’m telling all my district directors, “Be ready for the third and fourth quarter.” Everything I hear is that things are gonna really bump up in regards to demand and expansions of loans, uh, the third and fourth quarter this

Justin Brady: So you’re seeing a lot of economic–Like pouring a lot of fuel on the fire that’s gonna kinda, uh, show itself

Brad Zaun: Yeah, there’s a lot of indications, uh, of that happening. Um, obviously, um, we’ve gotta get some things taken care of that the president has to do internationally, and I think that that’s looking more and more positive. Uh, but I really do believe that… I mean, if you look at what, uh, President Trump did his first term, and the economy just really skyrocketed, you know, the year two, three, four before, you know, he was done being president, and I see that happening again. Uh, I just think that there’s, there’s a lot of optimism. And I travel, I’m gone probably 60, 70% of the time, meeting with small business people. Um, the optimism is really high right now.

Justin Brady: Good. Um, one of the things you said that I think, uh, maybe is more significant than even you realize, maybe, I don’t know, is you mentioned there’s growth in manufacturing, but then you mentioned another key component to that, which is you guys work with under 500 people. Now, we know in business that most manufacturing growth in this country historically has been from very large entities. So the fact that you think you see a… The, the fact that you see a trend of growth in manufacturing under 500 employees, that’s kind of a n-Is that a new

Brad Zaun: you would be so surprised how much manufacturing there is out there. I’m just… And these are people that started in their garage. I mean, I just was down in Wichita, Kansas, with a huge company, guy started in his garage, uh, that, uh, supplies the conveyors for all of our elevators. Um, and I think he’s probably got 200 or 300 employees. I, I can’t recall what it was. But you’d be surprised how many small manufacturers there are. I–we obviously, uh, when I go out, I wanna talk to them. I wanna hear what their challenges are. We’re obviously encouraging growth and, uh, so, uh, it’s really, it’s mom and pops. We are called the Small Business Administration for a reason. We’re supposed to focus on, and these are probably–This is probably nine–I think I heard a figure of 98% of the businesses out there are small businesses which qualify to 500 or less employees.

Justin Brady: And has that-number grown in the last five

Brad Zaun: That I can’t tell you. I just know what, what I’ve just heard recently, that 98% of all the businesses in the United States are small businesses.

Justin Brady: But the manufacturing thing is, uh, like have you seen… Again, you’ve, um, been with the Small Business Administration now two years,

Brad Zaun: This, I got sworn… Yeah, a little over a year and a half, about a year and a

Justin Brady: Okay. And so you don’t have, you haven’t been there long enough to see major trends, But-I do wanna push into this because is this a new tr-I think it is, by the way, just, you know, but is this a new trend that we’re seeing growth out of small teams in manufacturing? ‘Cause this, I think this-is a new trend, right?

Brad Zaun: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think what really happened is COVID really opened up the eyes of a lot of us. And of course, then the president gets in there, like him or not, he’s a business person. Um, and I do like him, and I think he’s doing a great job. But with that said, I mean, that’s kind of been the focus. Okay, we learned a lesson during COVID, and we need to make, make things in America. And there’s just literally thousands and thousands of stories just in the four states, uh, that, you know, that I’ve been the, uh, regional administrator and continue to do so. But there’s literally thousands of businesses that are out there that are just the, the, they’re just the, the best-kept secrets. I mean, we always read in the news about the, the larger corporations when they do something like that. Yeah, we are too. Yeah. So, you know, these are small people that really just want to be small business people that just want to be left alone. Just leave me alone, let me run my business, and oh, you talk about American dream, I see it every day.

Justin Brady: And so, uh, maybe the last th-I, I, would actually-prefer to talk about this in like, uh, manufacturing and small business and, um, for another 30 minutes, but, uh, there is one more thing I wanna touch on, but I guess I’ll put an end cap on it, which is

Brad Zaun: the

Justin Brady: And with AI and advances in automation and robotics, the cost of entry to very sophisticated manufacturing i-is getting smaller and smaller and easier by the day. I think it’s within five years, maybe, maybe 10 years, uh, definitely 10 years, that we’ll start seeing very advanced manufacturing facilities coming out of one to two-person teams out of garages. I think we’re gonna-start to see that, and it looks like maybe we’re starting to see the early wave of that right Now which Is… extremely exciting. Um, I–The one last question I wanna ask about is disaster relief. This is something you do in, like… Doesn’t FEMA do da-disaster relief? Is there a handshake here? What, what is-I

Brad Zaun: comes out, and I think they as-they assess the damage, and unfortunately this is a big part of the Small Business Administration. Uh, a lot of misinformation that’s out there. Uh, something that I really didn’t realize that they did when I took on this position. Um, luckily for Iowa, they were spared last year. Missouri was hit extremely hard. Obviously, there’s different weath-weather patterns. But what we do is we wait for search and rescue to be done, and then there’s a proclamation process that we work with the governor, uh, or, uh, my administrator, who’s an incredible, uh, person to work for, Kelly Loeffler. Um, and so it’d be the president would make, uh, you know, a declaration, or administrator makes a, a declaration. USDA gets to make a, can make a declaration, uh, as well. So what happens is once we find out and search and rescue is done, we deploy the resources to wherever that hard-hit area is. Could be flooding or tornadoes, typically in the Midwest. Uh, and then what we do, and this is what people do, “Well, you just borrow or you borrow money to, uh, businesses.” No, we’re, we’re way more than that. What we do is, obviously, we do small businesses. It’s usually around a 2 to 3%, uh, APR, which is really affordable. Um, usually the term’s like 30 years. But we do it with businesses, nonprofits, churches, housing, as well as multi-housing. So we’ll go in there and we, we’ll set up a temporary office, and now they’ve got a mobile unit that they take out when these areas are hit. And we just work with and help the people that are affected by that, whatever that particular storm is, to get, you know, to certainly get the capital they need to rebuild. A lot of times they need the capital beforehand, before the insurance pays or there’s delays in insurance. Um, and, uh, so unfortunately I spent a lot of time on the road. We had a, a bad, uh, flood in Nebraska. We had tornadoes and floods in, in Kansas. Iowa, like I said, was spared. Um, Missouri, I… It was almost every week we had a different tornado down there. Of course, everybody hears about the billion-dollar storm that went right through St. Louis, started at the zoo and just went to the, uh, the northeast. Uh, that was a 10-and-a-half mile path right through the city. Uh, so that’s what we do. It’s, it’s a hard thing, but we have our own disaster service. And the big thing, it’s the only time the SBA actually loans the money directly. We don’t go through a bank. Oh, so it doesn’t

Justin Brady: so it doesn’t go through-so it’s quicker.

Brad Zaun: Yep. It just… We make it happen fast and try to help those people out.

Justin Brady: So it’s… Yeah, you’re even a resource when people, like if they have a flood out or, uh… Oh, wow. I… See, this is, this is fascinating. I had no idea you guys did

Brad Zaun: Any natural disaster. It could be snowstorms. You know, I’m talking about what happens in the Midwest, so.

Justin Brady: Uh, before I let you go, is there any, uh, other kind of exciting data points or trends that you’re seeing, uh, right now?

Brad Zaun: No, just positive. Uh, really happy about the changes that have been made. Obviously, I’m new to the SBA. Just focused on helping people out, helping businesses out, uh, deploy the capital they need, uh, in a timely manner. Uh, we’re turning around loans now on our side. Of course, the banks, uh, take a little bit to process. Uh, but we’re d-we’re turning around in seven days, seven business days. So we’re turning around the money fast, uh, or the guarantee fast, and so the banks can, you know, react to that. Obviously, businesses, delays cost money, and, uh, we’ve really improved that. And customer service, customer service, customer service. That’s what I tell th-my whole team of, uh, in all the different states that I represent, is the customer, the taxpayer, is number one. And, uh, so, uh, I’m really happy about everything. It’s an honor for me to do it. I love my job. People ask me, “Do you miss the Iowa Senate?” No.

Justin Brady: the

Brad Zaun: but I don’t miss the

Justin Brady: I-Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you can get a government entity to focus on customer service-Yeah I think you should probably be appointed maybe a little higher up. maybe work for federal Maybe. I don’t…

Brad Zaun: the o-the only thing I would add is that, uh, President Trump and, and, uh, uh, Administrator Leffler, this is something that’s new. We, as a federal agency, are working together. I’ve, I spent a lot of time with USDA. I spent a lot of time with HUD. Uh, those are the natural, uh, groups that I need to be, uh, working with. So we’re trying to help each other out, where before there was these walls that were built between federal agencies. So, uh, I think things are great. And, uh, like I said, to all your listeners, if you have a dream or if you wanna expand, please reach out to the Small Business Administration, because all of our services are free.

Justin Brady: And we’ll make sure to put all the direct links on the show notes page if you’re driving at iowapodcast.com. Administrator Brad Zaun of the SBA, thank you so much for coming in here during, uh, Small Business Week here on the Iowa Business Podcast. Really appreciate it. Oh, wow

Brad Zaun: be here, and we’re really ready and excited to celebrate Small Business Week the first week of May