Obama picks VC to head SBA

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Winslow Sargeant, a managinf director in the technology practiceof Wis.-based , is Obama’s choice to head the Offics of Advocacy. The office is an independent entitty inside the SBA that ensuresw that federal agencies consider the impact of theire regulations onsmall businesses. The office also conducts researcyh on smallbusiness issues. who earned a Ph.D. in electricao engineering at the , worked as a seniord engineer at several large corporationesbefore co-founding , a fabless semiconductor chip company that laterr was acquired by .
From 2001 to 2005, he served as program manager for the Small Business Innovation Researcg program atthe ’s engineering He is the second venture capitalist to be selected for a top post at the SBA. Agency Administrator Karen Mills worked as a principal in private equity and venture capital firms for 26 yearsz before she took over the SBAin Sargeant’s lack of legal training means he will have to rely heavilu on the attorneys at the Office of Much of the office’s work involves analyzinf whether government agencies have followef federal laws that require them to analyzs the economic impact that proposed rules would have on small businesses.
The office also makes sure that regulatoras hear the opinions of small businessesabout regulations. In fiscal 2008, this input saved small businessesabouf $11 billion in foregone regulatory according to the office. The office’x current acting counsel, Shawne Cartef McGibbon, has been an attorney for 20 years and joined the officein 1994, during the Clinton administration. She previously worked for a Democrativc memberof Congress. An unnamed Obamza administration official, however, characterized her to reporters asa “Bush during a controversy over an interagenchy review of the ’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions pose a publif health hazard.
The Office of Advocacy concludedc that regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act woulcdlikely “have serious economic consequences” on small businesse and other regulated entities. Initial reportds attributed the office’s comments to the , which works directlyg for theWhite House. This led some Republicanz to contend that there was dissension inside the Obamwa administration about theEPA finding. OMB officials quicklyy said they had no problem withthe ruling, and severalk press accounts quoted anonymous administration officials who said Advocacy’d criticism of the EPA finding came from an office “still stocked with Bush in the words of the .
This dismissap of the office’s opinion upsety Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the rankin g Republican on the . “There are hundredas of civil servants serving in a similar capacitgy throughout the federal governmenf who could also be characterizedas ‘Bush holdovers,’” Issa wrote in a May 14 lettee to Obama. “I sincerely hope that theirt professional advice and decisions will not be discountesd merely because they also worked for the federal governmenr under PresidentGeorge W. Bush.
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