Headline News
A Presidential Visit
8/8/2011
Metropolitan Archives hosts President Obama.
Doug Peters (left) and Joe Incarnato (center) of Metropolitan Archives talk with President Obama. When Landover, Md.-based Metropolitan Archives decided to purchase a new building for its growing records management business, the company turned to its long-time bank for financing. Being a small, local firm, the bank suggested bringing in additional funding through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s CDC/504 Program. The CDC/504 program provides small businesses with long-term, fixed-rate financing for the acquisition of major fixed assets for expansion or modernization.
According to the SBA website,
www.sba.gov, “A Certified Development Company (CDC) is a private, nonprofit corporation which is set up to contribute to economic
development within its community. CDCs work with SBA and private sector lenders to provide financing to small businesses, which accomplishes the goal of community economic development.”
When Metropolitan Archives applied for the SBA loan, the maximum amount of a CDC/504 loan was $2 million, and the company had applied for and had received that amount, according to co-owner Joseph Incarnato. President Obama was seeking to increase the maximum loan amount to $5 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and his administration was looking for a local company that could have used additional funds, if they were available. “Those factors put us on their radar screen,” Incarnato says of how the Obama administration came to learn of Metropolitan Archives.
Incarnato took a call from a woman at the SBA, who said she wanted to prevent him from being caught off guard when he received a call later that afternoon. Joking, Incarnato responded, “Is President Obama going to come visit me himself?”
President Obama talks about the SBA loan program at Metropolitan Archives. Her response, according to Incarnato, was: “Well, not today, but next Wednesday.”
Later that afternoon, Incarnato received a call from the White House. Saturday, the company hosted a White House staff member, who informed the company that it had been selected to host the press conference with the president.
Metropolitan Archives was able to invite 30 guests to the event Oct. 21, 2009, and selected representatives from its top 10 accounts. The rest of the attendees were local politicians, bankers and members of the press, Incarnato says.
The company was only three years old at the time, and the coverage helped to increase Metropolitan Archives’ name recognition in its service area, Incarnato says.
The SBA loan process involved a lot of paperwork and a number of hurdles, Incarnato says. Despite this, he and his business partner, Doug Peters, will use the SBA loan program in the future when Metropolitan Archives purchases the rest of its current site, Incarnato says. “When you ask for that much money, you have to be able to show that you are going to be able to pay them back.”