WASHINGTON—.
Ms. Guzman was a senior official at the SBA during the Obama administration, serving as deputy chief of staff. In 2019, she became the director of California’s Office of the Small Business Advocate, where she helped implement a grant program for businesses affected by the pandemic. If confirmed, Ms. Guzman would lead an agency that is best known for its loan programs to provide small firms with capital and has more recently helped businesses affected by the pandemic. Many of the agency’s loan programs rely on partnerships with banks and other financial institutions, which issue the loans and receive an SBA guarantee.
The agency, created in 1953, also offers programs to help small businesses win federal contracting opportunities and funds local centers where entrepreneurs receive counseling, technical assistance and other support. Through its Office of Advocacy, the SBA also aims to advance small-business interests throughout the federal government.
The relatively small bureaucracy played a key role in the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The SBA administered the popular Paycheck Protection Program, which provided coronavirus aid in the form of forgivable loans to small businesses, nonprofits and self-employed entrepreneurs.