DOT and Carver Bank Partner to Help Small Businesses

If all goes as planned, Leroy C. Brown, founder and owner of a trucking firm in New Jersey, will soon be forging a partnership with Carver Federal Savings Bank in Harlem.

Brown, whose two trucks haul heavy gravel and hard asphalt, was the lone minority businessman at the bank when the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) recently announced that Carver would be the first participating New York lender in its Short Term Lending Program.

“What this means is now I’ll be able to get the loans I couldn’t get before,” Brown explained. “Now I can expand my business, and at least acquire a couple more trucks and hire more drivers. This program is a great opportunity for me and other minority businesses.”

That’s exactly what DOT and Carver want to hear as they launch the lending program that guarantees up to $750,000 in loans with participating lenders for small and disadvantaged businesses.

“This initiative is in keeping with the Obama administration’s commitment to helping minority owned and small businesses,” said Ray LaHood Secretary of Labor, who joined Deborah Wright, CEO and chair of Carver Bancorp Inc., at the press conference in Harlem. “And Carver, with its solid, longstanding reputation, is the perfect partner in this effort.”

Wright said: “We are thrilled to have the DOT as a partner in this endeavor. With them backing us up, we can provide new loans to small and historically disadvantaged businesses who receive transportation related contracts.”

James Bason, Carver’s senior vice president and chief lending officer, was equally thrilled. “Without the DOT’s backing, it is very difficult for a small or minority business to have the capital and collateral to get a loan. Everything will be a lot easier for them now.”

Nancy Strine, manager of the Financial Assistance Division, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, was pleased that the DOT and Carver had finally come together. “It’s something I have been working on for months, and now at last it’s done,” she said.

Brown said he was polishing up his business plan and setting up a meeting with Carver right away. “This is an opportunity I’m not going to miss,” he promised.


Local elected officials Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Edolphus Towns, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, say the DOT-Carver relationship will be a boon to minority communities. “Today’s announcement should provide much needed access to capital for minority businesses, which will lead to more jobs,” Towns said in a press release.

Rangel congratulated the partnership for addressing a key concern of the Obama administration. “This is what responsible community banking is all about,” he said. “I encourage more of our banking institutions to follow Carver’s lead and find ways to help small and disadvantaged businesses to raise the financial capital necessary to compete for contracts that will not just maintain jobs, but will also expand employment opportunities in all communities.”

The aim now is to get the word out to the businesses that may qualify for the loans.

“That’s what I’m busy doing right now,” said Elizabeth Perdomo, project director at the Small Business Transportation Resource Center, Northeast Region.  “In fact, I notified Mr. Brown about this new program and, as you can see, he’s right here and there will be others.”

Photo:  (L to R)  Ray LaHood, Nancy Strine, Deborah Wright, and Brandon
Neal. Photo by Herb Boyd