President Obama Names This Week National Small Business Week

National Small Business Week 2015 celebrations kicked off Monday in South Florida. The annual event is hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration to recognize the nation’s top small businesses, entrepreneurs, and business advocates. The weeklong event will continue through Friday, May 8, with SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet hosting planned national events in Los Angeles, San Antonio, New York City and Washington, D.C., where festivities will conclude with recognizing national award winners and the selection of the national Small Business Person of the Year.

In his proclamation declaring May 4-8 as National Small Business Week, President Barack Obama declared America’s small businesses “the backbone of our economy, employing half of our country’s private sector workforce and creating nearly two out of every three new jobs in our country.”

This year’s theme is “Dream Big, Start Small.” Throughout National Small Business Week, events will be live-streamed and focused on a variety of entrepreneurial topics including: trade, lending for small businesses, veteran support, targeting millennial entrepreneurs and innovation. Free training webinars covering common business topic areas regarding pay, digital footprints, new chip card payment technologies, benefits packages, and online payment strategies will be held May 4-7. To see the city-by-city schedule and to register for the webinars or view live-streamed events, visit www.sba.gov/nsb.

The President states in his proclamation, “We are focused on injecting capital into emerging, entrepreneurial communities, supporting ventures operated by women, veterans, and underserved populations.  And we continue to work to open new markets for small exporters because we know trade promotion bolsters our small businesses and their employees.”

The proclamation closes with “Our small businesses represent what is best about our Nation – the idea that with determination and responsibility, anyone can build a better life for themselves and their loved ones.  For more than two centuries, American innovation has sparked ideas that have changed our lives and the course of our history for the better.  This week, we recognize the role small businesses play as pillars of our communities and engines of our growing economy, and we rededicate ourselves to fostering the entrepreneurial spirit that has forged the strongest economy the world has ever known.”