disclosures. >> it is actually on your end in terms of having the capacity to look at the various programs. >> i think i would just add that i think during this tumultuous year on which the four of us went racing around trying to learn as much as we could about a variety, wide variety of programs by many different agencies, not just the nsa, the one thing that i learned the most was you have to know how to ask the right questions. if you ask the right questions, the information is forthcoming. we had no instance where they simply won't tell you more we absolutely refuse. but you do know how to ask a second round of questions into so we were just i think getting to that point out sophisticati sophistication. >> and you have gone into the operation as a body when -- was

going to the operation on what day? >> in august we were confirmed in the prior august. >> 2012. >> yes and shortly thereafter we would be sworn in. >> there is an idiosyncrasy to the statute that i would point out which is only the four part-time members were confirmed in august of 2012. only the chairman has the statutory authorization to hire the staff or the executive director. and mr. medine wasn't confirmed until may of 2013 so we didn't have the statutory capacity to hire the staff or an executive director to say nothing of our intent to find office space or intranet, everything that needs to be done for an agency. >> so, that takes me to the

question of an independent advocate who could appear in the court representing a public interest. .. of how that individual gets managed and supervised, i get more anxious. i think if the person is an appointee of the chief judge of the court or chief justice of the united states, they risk becoming the pet lawyer of that individual. i think if the court can call on hem or not at its discretion there's the risk that they get completely marginalized when they may have something useful

to say. if they are not supervised by somebody, there's the risk that you just created a sinny cure -- syncicur for a small group of individuals and as long as they appeal to the political galleries that are watching their behavior adequately, they stay on even long after they have become ineffective and not noteworthy to the courtney longer because they are ineffective. there are all these dangers of how you keep that focus and how you keep that task properly done. make the case for why you all should be the oversight in the context of those dangers. >> i think we have not suggested that we should be the oversight for the special advocate. i know some have suggested that we be the body to appoint the members, a pool of special advocates or appoint a special

advocate. we intentionally did not we intentionally did not not recommend that in part because women oversight function of the agencies involved -- >> i misunderstood. i thought that was your suggestion. >> no. we recommended that the court choose from private attorneys to act as a special advocate inappropriate cases and there would be reporting as to when the court exercise its jurisdiction to bring those parties in. >> how do you avoid a sinecure of fact in that circumstance? >> we thought long and hard about where to put the special advocate. we thought first about the executive branch. we are concerned its executive branch approaching the fisa court for 30 so did make sense to have an argument against itself. we thought of the judiciary, and again the judiciary committee vote be an independent arbiter and it did make sense to have them be the house special advocate. without having a private outside attorney who had the independence to come in and make those arguments and hopefully with some transparency about who is chosen as an advocate so the

public can know who's involved and transparency but when their chosen to participate, we thought struck the right balance between independence and accountability. >> it's a worrisome question and i confess i don't have an answer to it in mind myself, but when you dive into something that is so inherently private and classified as this kind of activity, the ordinary controls, a lot of the ordinary controls vanish. that leaves some sort of small political dynamics and can begin to take over and they think everyone of us have probably some point in our lives had the expense of seeing somebody move into position akin to this and dine out on it for the rest of their lives without producing much value. >> that's where we hope the rotation of the judges will play a role in that. we have tried to buy the special advocates have more appeal, cases on appeal. so there's greater oversight of the process. there's a challenge there, but

again we try to strike what we thought was the best balance between the competing concerns. also i guess it's worth keeping in mind, they cases which the special advocate don't happen all that often, if you institutionalize a perso personn their target to get what he did with the job as oppose to bring in outside attorneys on a case-by-case basis. we thought made more sense. >> senator, i think what we tried to do is to create incremental improvement in the current structure, and relatively lightweight system, and to surround it with some of the reporting that's already inherent in the fisa oversight process. that is, already the government is required to report to this committee and the intelligence committees on significant opinions issued by the court. we would say, well, supplement that by saying, was there the special advocate and vote in that case? we recommend that that reporting come to us as well.

and we did think that the judges you really wanted this capability in our discussions with the current and former judges of the court, former judges of the court that we talk to. it seemed that they genuinely wanted the ability to call upon a special advocate in certain cases. so i think our recommendations add up to that kind of, some internal checks and balances on the system. the government is currently required to notify the court when there is a significant issue posed in a case. that's one sort of triggering point. the judges themselves, we did conclude, are generally alert to those -- they might not see all of them but alert to them. then the reporting to this committee after the decisions are made and the question was to the advocate, so you don't

institutionalize it. i think that you could have a good enough workable system that would significantly increase the credibility of the process, add to the credibility of the process without some kind of institutionalized weighty structure. >> icon will over my time and i have to distinguished colleagues here who i am trusting upon. i would be like to have another round to continue this discussion. i want to yell back. >> i, first of all, want to come back to a point that mr. medine made that we should be immensely grateful to our intelligence community for the courageous and able contribution that they make to protecting our national security. and i said yesterday when the armed services committee first heard testimony from director clapper, we freakily emphasize

feeling because we don't all see the successes. and we should be mindful of the courage and dedication that they demonstrate day in and day out. some of them in harm's way. i may be the only person on this committee who feels this way, but i believe that the disclosure that only 30% of these records are actually collected, and that the proportion has plummeted since 2006 is a real game changer. it calls into question the entire rationale for the meta- data collection program. as a matter of process, it really raises the question of credibility for the train the government and the records as

nations -- and the representations it is made to the fisa court, the philly to correct a representation that it evidently made in 2006 that 100% of these records were going to be collected. representations made to the district court's that are currently considering this iss issue. to quote the deputy attorney general in testimony that he gave in july to congress, deputy attorney general james cole said in justification for this program, if you're looking for the needle in the haystack, you have to find -- you have to have the entire haystack to look through. end of quote. i'm just a country lawyer from connecticut, but if i went to a judge and, as a prosecutor, i

did, and i said we need a search warrant to look at the whole house because we believe there may be incriminating evidence in this house and we need to search through every room, and that's why we are asking for the warrant to search the whole house. and then the police, under my authority, went to the house and only looked at maybe a few rooms and decided either they didn't have time or the rooms were dark, or summer locked, i would feel an obligation to go back to the judge and say, your honor, we need to at least tell you about the search. and i could think of a number of analogous situations comparable to it. and the question of whether the whole house needs to be searched. is in question. in this instance the rationale for this program is that all of the data has to be collected so

that connections can be made, algorithms can be applied, analysis and disclose whether or not there are communication that may raise national security concerns here so i guess my question to the panel, and particularly to the dissenters, ms. brand and ms. cook, doesn't this disclosure that only 30% of these records were actually collected -- a legitimate reason perhaps that the government wasn't able to collect all, raise questions not only about the efficacy of the program, but also about its legal foundation. >> i think for the reasons that the chairman explained, it's touchy for us to talk about this because i'm not clear exactly on what's classified and what's true.

so we can't get into that here but i do think if they were on a prospective basis, if there were an institutional reason why the government would only be able to collect 30% of the records and that's it, for ever, that would diminish the value of the program or what it would be if they collected 100% of the records. i agree with that. another thing that i want to point out is something i said in a separate statement and i think others on the board a great is that for any program like this the government should be continually assessing the valley of the program and whether it has diminished or could increase, or whether it's diminish over time in light of changed circumstances, changed behavior of suspects, changed behavior of public a come additional legal tools might be available or other changes in the law, everything, and they should continue the program. i think they do that already on an informal basis but i think a more formalized process in which the privacy workers would be a good thing spent we agree there

should be an ongoing assessment of the efficacy of these programs. if i could return to your first point for a moment with regard to the dedication of the workers in the intelligence community, just to reinstate -- to restate the. we found an extraordinary dedicated. i want to make clear that our recommendations about the legality of the program has nothing to do with a good faith in which they have operated and the administration has operated in the course of operate with regard to this program to our effort is to take a look, our mandate, look at privacy and civil liberties and what protections are available. section 215 does have protection everything on a prospective basis, even to the extent the program continued for shortbread, those should be in place. we are not to impugn it all the good bit of anyone who has relied on either the constitutional issues or statutory issues. >> because were running out of time of going to cut short my questions, but just make the observation that i believe the constitutional advocate far from being a lightweight institution has to be a real heavyweight to

protect the constitution, and i would err on the side of the giving that person, or office, the resources, the authority, the personnel, and ultimately the credibility that will enhance the trust and confidence of the american people in the constitutionality of this process and its legality. senator franken. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm just a little confused from my first set of questions. so i just, because it seems a little at odds with the report. any of you can weigh in on this, place. page 205 -- let me first go on, the recommendation nine says the government should publicly disclose more details to provide a more complete picture of government surveillance operations. and then on page 205, you say,

if the statute such as section 215 continues to be used as bases for individualized collection and a bulk collection, the mere number of section 215 orders could be misleading. so when i asked about transparency before, and putting up the number of -- right now this "washington post" article is speaking to the issue of how many numbers are -- how many phone calls are being collected, that's collected, it just seems to me, and since the number of orders is, as you say, misleading, i don't understand your answer. i don't understand why repealing the number, numbers that are

caught up in this collection isn't more transparency and doesn't give americans a better idea of the dimension of this so that americans can decide for themselves what this program is and whether it's legitimate. or whether it's proper. >> senator, you've been the beer on this issue, and i don't in any way want to lose sight of i think substantial agreement between us, and probably between all the members of the board and you, on the abortion transparency and the valley of numbers as a component of transparency. i think i would simply respond to what i think is an important but in some ways narrow question, which is how do we handle numerical reporting on

bulk collection programs? as opposed to numerical reporting on targeted programs which i think everybody agrees, some progress has been made and will could be made on transparency of the numerical reporting, how many orders, how many accounts affected on the targeted site. so that's not what i think you and i are talking about now. we are talking about the bulk side. >> right. >> where, obviously one order or three orders of five orders could be meaningless if millions and millions of people are affected. on the other hand, i think we were thinking here, what about the next program and the next program and the next program? and how do we deal with, again, if 215 states, -- stays as it

is, how do we deal with bold reporting on the next program and the next program and the next on? >> what about the program that exists? spent a program that exists because americans know about this program and we still haven't really given them, become the "washington post" will put out an article. why can't the government tell us the number of telephones, telephone numbers that are having their data collected? and then how many are being queried. that would get people some idea of the scope of this program and what it is dealing. and i think americans deserve to have that information in order to decide for themselves, and i think it would be very helpful. and listen, i agree with both the chairman and mr. medine on

the, on our intelligence people. i believe that they are doing the best job they can, but we have oversight. and part of the oversight to me is what you talk about, how important transparency is. and i'm very confused about what you write in your report and what your answer was to my first question in my first set of questions. >> don't let me hold it here because there are others who are confused. i agree on the numbers of the queries. the reporting there has been disclosed and could be disclosed. >> it has been? >> 99% sure that the government has declassified at least for one year the queries made against the database [talking over each other] >> actually if i could clarify,

senator franken. one, speaking for myself, i agree that americans, their first primary question is going to be, you, how big is this? how many americans are likely affected by this program. to the extent that this information can be disclosed without, unless the government can show. i mean, i think, i would suggest this myself, the burden would be on the government to show why it would be a national security problem. but to approximate that as close as you can get to that number without there being any security problems, but as jim suggested, the so-called query this entire databank which we don't know and, obviously, there's some confusion from a newspaper

account as to how big that is your but they have disclosed that they queried it with a so-called rosin, reasonable articulate suspicion in the area of three has -- 300. we don't know how many numbers on the first top or second hop or even a third hop. you can get -- it's also a difficult, very careful and define what number you want because as we learn the way the system operates, this is in the report, when you get the first hop as to which a suspicious number has been in contact with, what happens is the analysts look at all the numbers that crop up in him a look at several of them and say that's of no interest to us. we know automatically that some kind of number that has no interest to us. so we will only look at one out of the 12 or one out of 10. or they may look at them all, or

they may look at some and discard them. and then you go to the second hop from all of those numbers and you get communicable wider and wider swath. but i do think your general notion that americans are most interested in in some notion of the scope of people who have been affected is one that the government and the congress and all of the people should work toward approximating. unless the government can show that there's some national security danger there. >> i also wanted to add that one of the policy reason why we recommended ending this program is that concerned by americans they are being surveil, whether it's 30% or 100%. knowing that the government is collecting your phone calls to your lawyer, to your political organization, to a journalist has a chilling effect and that's why we think it's preferable to not have the government maintain

this okidata but use other stories at the information held elsewhere. >> no matter where it's held that's problematic but i know a vote has been called and we have to go. >> senator whitehouse, did you have other questions? >> just perhaps an observation but you can respond if you want to respond for the record, that's fine. this is probably the most overseeing program in the history of the american intelligence community. it is setting aside the intelligence community, probably one of the most overseeing government programs ever, anywhere. it was managed by nsa but it was overseen by the department of justice and the odni. with nsa you'd relatively indiana bodies like inspector general, office of director of compliance, the general counsel's office who had important roles in it, was reported quarterly to the

president's intelligence oversight board. you had a full-time court with multiple judges overseeing it. i think that they used to say that their are more than 30 different congressional committees that have oversight authority of it. certainly the intelligence committees, this committee, equipment committees in the house all had oversight over it. it's hard to imagine how you could apply more oversight and have it make an incremental difference. did you add one more office to the wide array of authority already engaged in oversight. so to the extent that there was an oversight problem, it raises to me the question more about the quality of the oversight and the organization of the oversight rather than the quantity of the. we sorted through more oversight of the program than anything in

history. i'm just interested in your reaction to that thought. one more patch, i don't think is going to help wonder such a huge quilt of oversight patchwork of their already. >> i think there are a number of things. one is, i don't want to overstate our capabilities, but our board is now an independent agency with high level clearances with authority to see all the information regarding the programs and report our independent use of that come in the review prior to the white house or anybody else to the congress, the president and the public as we are done with regard to this program. we are very small and will stay relatively small but those areas where we look we -- >> inspector general or in the same position? >> right. but our focus is on national security, bound with privacy and civil liberties. they have a much broader focus. i hope we can contribute in some way going forward. and as we recommended -- >> let me not put you in a position of trying to defend you should have some role going

forward. my point is when you've got this vast array of oversight already, the most overseeing programming history, adding one more thing i don't think is a convincing argument on its own. i think that we've got to take a look at the structure of this patchwork and array of oversight to see if, in fact, there were oversight problems, what do they go back to? i don't mind adding you to the question. that's not my point. my point is there's already some of oversight that i can believe adding it will make huge marginal difference. it will make a good difference and i don't object to your further participation in this, but i really think to the extent that oversight is condemned in all of this, the solution is not adding more small elements of oversight to an already vastly overseeing, multiply overseen, frankly hard to imagine how you could add more oversight to it other than yourselves. i mean, every pressure of government is covered. every house of congress is

covered, executive branch has multiple, redundant -- >> senator, if i could. i think you're 100% right. i actually think that's why the valley of our board and what needs to be done is i think what we did was, we pulled back and said, wait a second. where's the legal foundation for this? upon which structure has all of that oversight been created, and we concluded, the majority, that the foundation itself was inadequate. and then i do believe we took, remarkably, the most in depth look at the effectiveness. and looked, i believe, more closely and probing only at effectiveness, and again concluded that the program came up short. but those two questions and what is the legal foundation and was the effectiveness despite all of

that structure i believe they never really got 10 years of this program adequate attention. attention. >> and i want to take the prerogative of the chair to observe in response to senator whitehouse is point that none of the oversight was adversarial in nature. which is why i proposed a constitutional advocates. courts always do better when they hear both sides. the process is well served when there's contention as there was within this board. and i might just point out that the dissent by ms. brand says in committee on whether the board should consider the legal question as you very thoughtfully observed, and i'm quoting from this legal question will be resolved by the courts, not by this board, which does not have the benefit of traditional adversarial legal briefing and is not particularly well-suited to conducting de

novo review of long-standing statutory interpretation. at least part of that observation can be said of the fisa court, and other legal review, and perhaps fact review, that's been conducted in this program. the oversight may have been numerically abundant, but as you observed, senator whitehouse, potentially lacking in quality. so i'm going to have to go to the vote. senator whitehouse moves more quickly. >> no. we will go ahead and i will the chairman conclude hearing. i would just note in reply that the great adverse relationship with the founding fathers built into the constitution was the adverse relationship between the legislative and executive branches, which they characterized as one of jealousy and rivalry, that was to be harnessed for the good of the

public. so i would hate to think that just because there wasn't a lawyer in the courtroom with a general public interest purpose, that there was not adversarial mess in all of this. there should've been in the structure of our government creates that, and if that had not been adverse enough, that's our fault that is not the fault of the lack of additional lawyer in the courtroom with the fisa court spent i don't think lawyers are necessary for adversarial contention. i think your point is well taken and i'm going to close the hearing. leave the record open for one week. and again, thank the panel for being here, for your very thoughtful and insightful and very helpful testimony. and again, thank our entire intelligence community, the day in and day out work, to grapple with these are difficult and challenging questions.

thank you, and hearing is closed. [inaudible conversations] >> a senate hearing from yesterday when the senate wrapped up its work for the weaker the chamber is out for the week but also for the recess. the presidents' day recess. before leaving you should democrats get to their committee leadership a bit with the recent resignation of finance committee chairman max bachus. center ron wyden replaces him on finance one was in sender barelegged takes over the gavel on the energy committee. senators maria cantwell of washington, jon tester of montana will chair the small business and indian affairs committees respectively. some news in the house, congressman doc hastings of washington announcing he will not seek reelection later this

year. attend the republican chairman of the natural resources committee said in a statement last friday, isolate or my 73rd birthday of our have the ability and seniority to continue serving, it is time for the voters to choose a new person. that's from doc hastings. house democrats today, tomorrow holding their annual policy retreat in cambridge, maryland. democratic leaders have a briefing set for 4 p.m. eastern. we plan to carry that live for you on c-span. president obama also speaking to the group tomorrow morning. politico reporting that democratic congressional campaign committee chairman steve israel told colleagues at the retreat that the president will headline at least six fundraisers for house democrats this year quote with the potential for more. >> saturday booktv is live in georgia for the savannah book festival. coverage on c-span2 start at 9 a.m. eastern and continues throughout the day.

this savannah book festival live saturday on booktv. and barks -- march 2, the civil rights movement and the obama air, historian we'll take calls, comes convenience and tweets live from noon to 3 p.m. eastern oon c-span2. and online that booktv's book club comment on papers in depth guest bonnie morris. join the conversation, go to booktv.org and click on the book club to enter the chat room. >> according to a recent study by the foundation, highest rate of entrepreneurship in the u.s. over the last decade has shifted to those in the 55-64 age group.

yesterday a senate panel examined the growing trend of older americans starting their own businesses and ways to reduce barriers. this is one hour 20 minutes. >> good morning. with the chairman's very kind permission, i am going to convene our hearing. we do expect to have a series of votes later this morning, so we want to make sure that we have ample time to hear the testimony from our great panel of witnesses. i am very pleased that the chairman has been able to put together this joint hearing with the senate small business committee. we've just been joined by the chairman of that committee, senator landrieu, who is chairman for a few more hours i

think, before she changes committees and senator cantwell becomes the chairman of the small business and entrepreneurship committee. i'm also very pleased to welcome my colleague from south carolina who has been a terrific member of the senate special committee on aging, senator scott, so thank you for being here with us today. and again, our chairman, senator bill nelson from florida will be joining us shortly. our nation's heritage is the land of opportunity, owes much to the hard work, energy, and optimism of those who take the risk to start up businesses of their own. through their success they help to create a better life for themselves, and to create jobs for others.

the role played by america's small businesses and creating jobs and opportunities is well known, but the role played by america's seniors may come as a surprise. individuals between the age of 55-64 make up the largest percentage of new business owners in the united states, and moreover, this has been true for decades even at the height of the do tcom boom. twice as many of new business were founded by those over age 50 than by those under age 25. most seniors don't want to spend their retirement just on leisure. and many simply need to earn extra money to help make ends meet. seniors often have advantages

that make them excellent entrepreneurs, such as their life experience and real world education, and the networks that they have established and maintained throughout their work careers. let me give just a few examples from my home state of maine to illustrate these points. bruce horsman from yarmuth spent his career in the catalog business, and as an advertising manager for a name to bank. as a hobby during his work years, he also created high quality custom made knives in his own small machine shop. after he retired with the help of score, a terrific program run by the sba that hats into the skills of retired business owners, he was able to turn his hobby into a full-time job, and now sells these nice to customers around the world.

dana spent 28 years at international paper. when he retired he is three colleagues started a small consulting firm to help other entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. dana said the great thing about running your own business in retirement is that you can work as much or as little as you want and still make a difference in the world. by choice, much of the work dana does is no pro bono. martin muldoon lost her job when she was 64 years old. but she picked herself up and got back in the game by starting their own topic relations business, calling on skills she had used earlier in her career. now she works out of her own home on her own schedule

directing the marketing for coffee news, the world's largest weekly restaurant publication. seniors like these seniors have become successful entrepreneur is, not only through the hard work, but also with the assistance of experts at score it with the support of programs run by the sba. i was telling espa's representatives today that than being a united states senator, my favorite job was when i was recent administrator of the small business association in new england and saw firsthand the difference the sba could make. so i'm particularly please that they are represented here today. i'm also absolutely delighted to see elizabeth isele at the witness table this morning. elizabeth is knowledgeable and tireless advocate for senior

entrepreneurship, and just as important, she hails from the great state of maine. again, chairman nelson and chairman landrieu, thank you for calling this important hearing. i appreciate the chairman's staff telling me to proceed. i didn't want you to think i had done that without permission. and i look forward hearing from our witnesses on how sba, and other assistance programs, can be even better tailored to help seniors startup businesses and create good jobs for themselves and for others. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. you all may be surprised that senator collins and i actually run this committee together. senator landrieu, madam chairman, madam chairman and congratulations on being madam chairman of the energy committee. >> thank you very much, but as

the ranking member said, for the next few hours i'm still maintaining my gavel as chair of the small business committee to get throug to this hearing, ther this afternoon we will take the gavel of energy. and that's how important this hearing was to me and to our team at sba him and senator nelson, thank you, and senator collins, for being willing to join us in this effort be it because i think it's such a promising subject to be explored indeed the supported. i love the term oncor entrepreneur. i think it just says it all. it really is an exciting opportunity for our country with older people, older citizens still very healthy, very experienced, wiser, palmer in their older years to be able to think and dream and build great businesses. and i think our country, if i might say, are structured in washington, in our states and in

a local communities really needs to recognize this wealth and treasure and structure ourselves to best help them. i'm going to submit my statement to the record, but i want to underscore what senator collins said. the kauffman foundation which i found to be extremely reliable source of good information about entrepreneurship, not partisan at all but very good facts about entrepreneurship says that from 1996-2010, 26% of entrepreneurial activity in this country, which is the backbone of our economy, was produced by people ages 20-34. that may be expected, but was not expected is that almost 40% are produced by people 55-64. this difference is expected to widen as more americans age over the next two decades and we i

believe that to be better position in washington, in a state capitals and in our cities to be good partners with these entrepreneurs. louisiana has approximately 960,000 residents over the age of 55 ready to go, ready to create jobs and opportunity. let me just say that the sba just this year, senators nelson and collins, launched a strategic partnership with aarp. this partnership focused on providing counseling and trading to entrepreneurs over 50 who want to start or grow a business. by october 2013, the collaboration had met and exceeded its goal of reaching 120,000 seniors, and i think this is just the beginning. so through our core partnership with score and mr. yancey is here representing them, and women business centers which all of us have supported, a series

of other partnerships with the private sector, i think this is so promising to not only provide an opportunity for our seniors, and more importantly for our seniors to create wealth, to continue to great wealth for themselves, their families, their communities and for the united states. so i'm going to stay for a few minutes. i've got to conduct another hearing this morning. i will submit the rest of my statement for the record, but just again, it's been a privilege to work with you all on this. senator nelson and i have introduced a bill, empowering encore entrepreneur act, s. 1454. perhaps some of the testimony can't enhance our efforts in that piece of legislation and we have been joined together with our republican colleagues and move something forward in the near future. thank you, senator nelson. >> and in the interest of time i will submit for the record a statement. and first we're going to hear from ms. tameka montgomery.

she served as associate administrator of the office of entrepreneurial development in the u.s. small business administration. and then from kenneth yancey, ceo of score. then conchy bretos, she's the ceo of the miami senior living solutions in miami. and then elizabeth isele. we are delighted to hear from the cofounder of the senior entrepreneurship works, and she is accompanied by dr. greg o'neill, director of the national academy of an aging society. so with that we will start off with you, ms. montgomery. your written testimony is inserted as a part of the record.

if you will share with us about five minutes and we'll go right down the line and then we'll open it up for questions. ms. montgomery. >> thank you. chairman nelson, chair landrieu, ranking member collins come and senator scott, thank you for the opportunity to testify on sba's work to serve america's encore entrepreneur's. new and expiring small business owners over the age of 50. we commend you for highlighting this important topic and are grateful for your ongoing leadership and support. we all know the facts. small businesses employ half of the private sector workforce and create two out of every three net new private sector jobs. what many people don't realize is that americans between the ages of 55-64 comprise the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the country. according to the kauffman foundation, encore entrepreneurs

start new firms at a higher rate than any other age group. moreover, about 7.4 million self-employed workers are 50 and older. and research shows that one in four americans between the ages of 44-70 are interested in starting a business or nonprofit. that's why at sba we are committed to ensuring that encore entrepreneurs have the tools they need to turn great ideas into successful companies. to our 68 district offices, and nationwide network of resource partners, which include 11,000 volunteer score mentors, nine and small business develop incentives, and more than 100 women business centers, we counsel and train more than 1 million current and aspiring entrepreneur's annually. we've always assisted small business owners over the age of 50, but our new initiative with aarp enables us to more

effectively target our services to encore entrepreneurs. in april 2012, sba and aarp entered into a strategic alliance to provide encore entrepreneurs with the tools and information they need for launching a new company. the objective of the partnership was threefold. first, to increase our outreach to this growing segment of prospective entrepreneurs. second, to connect these individuals with our programs and resource partners. and third, 2 two present entrepreneurship as a viable next step for older retiring americans, one that allows them to translate their ideas and vast professional experience into successful business ventures. between april 2012 and may 2013 we held hundreds of in person workshops and mentoring sessions on topics ranging from writing a business plan and exploring franchise opportunities to accessing new markets and addressing the technology needs

of encore entrepreneurs. would also offered online resources such as webinars and the courses and also a self-assessment tool for determining if an individual is ready to start a business. in order to increase awareness and connect more encore entrepreneurs with mentors, last april sba and aarp established the first annual national encore entrepreneur mentor month. are out of the month our district offices and resource partners teamed up with state aarp offices to host and promote more than 100 events around the country. events included speed mentoring which allow mentors and entrepreneur's to share information for five minute sessions, and mentor lunches where entrepreneurs could learn best practices from established business owners. as a result of this effort, aarp and our resource partners

engaged almost 120,000 individuals. and due to the initiatives ongoing popularity, we have seen a rise in the number of older americans taking advantage of sba programs. we know that these aspiring business owners are poised to join the ranks of other successful sba supported on core entrepreneurs, folks like the key to leverage her 21 year career in banking and her husband's background in construction to form business solutions inc.'s in reno, nevada. with the help of sba's business the government program, they keep secure government contracts with federal several agencies growing per capita revenue from $3,000,215,000,000 a year. together with our resource partners and friends at aarp, we look forward to continuing this important segment of the population and helping more encore entrepreneurs grow and

prosper. thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, ms. montgomery. mr. yancey. >> thank you. chairman nelson, senator collins, chairman landrieu, senator risch, senator scott, my name is kenneth yancey and i'm at ceo of score. thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony regarding the advantages and challenges of senior entrepreneurship and scores experience in serving this important and growing segment of our population. first i would like to thank senator landrieu and senator risch for sponsoring and introducing senate bill 2008. score for small business act of 2014, a reauthorization bill seeking to strengthen the resources for entrepreneurs by improving the score program. additional funds provided by this bill will allow us to continue to improve the services

offered by our volunteers come improve our efficiency, improve our outreach in both rural and underserved communities to include senior and encore entrepreneurs. as you know, score's resource partner with the u.s. small business administration were celebrate our 50th year this year. today, score has over 320 chapters in more than 11,000 volunteers nationwide, most of whom who are also seniors. many have been entrepreneur's and many are still actively employed or running their own business. they give back to the committees by volunteering in score and its significant economic impact. in fiscal year 2013 those volunteers assisted clients in starting 38,600 new businesses, adding 67,300 new jobs, and growing the revenues in 40,100 enterprises. score and it's one of the most efficient and effective business formation and job creation engines presently in the sba's

arsenal of resources. i'd like to reference a study sponsored by the met life foundation. in many areas the results of the study are consistent with the anecdotal information we gathered from score measures in preparation for this testimony to the survey estimates that 25 million americans aged or e e4-70 our interest in starting a business venture in the next 10 years. slightly less than half of those are interested in social entrepreneur should. and intend to benefit their local or regional community in addition to making a living. these aspiring senior entrepreneurs often have significant networks and bring to the table an average of 31 years of work experience. many have management experience, and most have very realistic expectations for their own small business experience. again this is consistent with the information we gathered from our score interested in 2013, 30% of our clients were between the ages of 44-55.

an additional 31% were 55 and older. of these clients, roughly 29% were considering starting a business, 38% were in the process of starting their business, and 29% -- excuse me, 33% were already in business. i know that's a lot of numbers but they are important. according to our mentors, our senior clients often have the tools and experiences needed to start a business. however, they may not have the ability to apply those resources in a small business setting. they did not have complex capital requirements, and most don't aspire to visit sites that will require a and shall, venture or private equity financing. many of them plan to self fund their venture with personal savings and don't need a small amount of outside capital, often less than $50,000. many have existing banking or vendor relationships, and other personal relationships that aid in the business start up and

manage the process. while a senior entrepreneur may have decades of experience, in the business world, these skills, relationships and expenses often are not a direct translation to the world of small business ownership. score mentoring, coaching, guidance and assistance provide support to be senior entrepreneurship and using a properly their existing knowledge and resources. it also helps them to focus on the right tasks, priorities, measurements and tools to be a successful small business owner. we appreciate the support of the two committees here today and your personal support of the issues around senior entrepreneurship and score. we believe that senior and on core entrepreneurship will continue to be an important segment within the small business marketplace. these individuals have significant knowledge, experience and often resources to use in support of their own business initiatives. a benefit from mentoring, coaching and education, related

to starting and running a small business. score clients 55 and older make up our largest client age demographic today. we know you recognize what an important valuable contributor tthat senior entrepreneur segmet is to our economy and you will help us continue to meet this growing need. i would be pleased to answer any questions, provide you with any documentation. thank you very much for this opportunity to testify. >> thank you, mr. yancey. ms. bretos spent i'm so happy to be here. thank you very much, chairman nelson, chairman landrieu, ranking member collins, and the rest of the members of this committee. i am delighted to share my talk on what it takes to be a late in life entrepreneur. there are currently 9 million this is the only sister sick, i think enough has been given, 9 million of us come and 31 million comes in the next decade. i am conchy bretos, the owner of

miami senior living solutions, for the first time provided assisted living services for public housing. in miami in 1996. in fact, senator nelson, you may not remember but you visited in 1998 and we were so pleased to see you there. been since then our firm has work with public and private entities in 23 states. later this spring will be opening the first public housing and assisted living facility right here in d.c. for the d.c. housing authority. our projects have proven to reduce medicaid and medicare spending by keeping seniors away from -- generating thousands of jobs and healthy profit margins. for the past two years we have partnered with low income tax

credit developers, owners of a for housing and investors to grow our model. this has required a major undertaking on our part. in 1995, i created miami senior living solutions as a full profit. knowing quite well that in order to grow our firm we have to be propelled by profit. [inaudible] i developed very good understanding of an aging issues, a good network, and facility to be able to bring funding to miami when it was required. i've lived long enough to learn from failures, how to deal with downturns and the ups and downs that senior our diverse culture. changing the way we care for our seniors, low-income seniors and

disabled adults in this country is not a new idea, but no one had come up with a good model. starting my own business at age 50, was as much, a part of changing life circumstances as it was a career change. and empty nest, and end of a marriage, a loss of a job. ..

i came to miami with an idea and a few thousand dollars. i wanted to convert a public housing building into assisted living. i went to a director and he gave me an award-winning project and then i went to the state legislature and got $1.2 million. i'm very good at raising money for other people but not myself. and they raised 1.2 million from the state legislature. we started telling foyer with a promise that would be self-sufficient by the end of the year and i actually generatd a profit at the end of the year. receiving the first prize in

2,006 and in 2010 has helped me tremendously. they have not only given recognition to what i did but they have provided a lot of people that have helped us in developing investors and budgets and how to present themselves and raise money. i've learned more about electronic records and blocking and facebook than i ever wanted. i almost catching up with my kids. most of my fellow interpreters today and also i want to recognize sba. they have contributed a lot of knowledge and money to my initiative but also entrepreneurs that are not as lucky as i have been in that

they do need capital and inventions into someone to open doorthe doors for them. it is a major factor. america is a young country. we think is an innovator as someone beyond the developed an idea into makeshift office or dormitory. that's the exception. the real interpreters as you have said. and we need some help in assessing the government for me has been a major issue. it's very difficult to bring in a new idea to the government god they need us and people like us who are committed and who have the public interest in mind. i am driven and i am terribly disruptive and those are the qualities that have gotten me here today and i thank you very

much. >> i understand what you mean about the technology. i am a senior entrepreneur myself and i'm very grateful to be here today to share and explore the opportunities that we all have as a country come as a nation, as communities and individuals to open in and expand the tapped resource of entrepreneurs and creating their own reliance as well as boosting that in their community and country and i would also like to acknowledge my colleague who is here. i'm extraordinarily and passion on the subject. doctor o'neill has the data to back up my passion. thank you for being here to do that. i have just returned from the

state of florida player we launched a brand-new program this weekend to an extraordinarily receptive audience. and as i said i am due -- the lighted because i started as a senior entrepreneur in the state of maine, and i don't know of any state as early on and then continuing to support entrepreneurial activity and extraordinarily welcome to a senior such as myself starting a program for seniors in the state to connect them to technology to help them understand how to use it. that program grew from 12 seniors in portland maine within five years to 28,000 seniors across the country. and it was supported and i did not start that enterprise with buckets of money budgeted with a senior entrepreneurs is help them understand how they can tap into resources that exist.

we have a panoply of resources, be it in adult education, senior entrepreneur and community centers area when i first had the idea of what connectivity for seniors would be to the technology, i went to people that worked with seniors and i said is this a good idea and they said i don't know that we will put up a poster in the senior centers and by all means say that it's free so we created a poster into the poster said does the world wide web and fire, come and find out and they came. as i said those 12 seniors came on saturday morning and started to learn about the technology and as they learned and as the program dealt, w we develop alliances with microsoft. microsoft gave a huge grant to the technologies and they are still continuing to deliver

through the library system. but then we also partnered with the national institute instituth because the national institutes of health was putting all of their healthcare information online and the greatest concern is seniors that need this information cannot access it because they do not know how to use the technology. so we created a partnership called cyber health which trains seniors how to access information and even a ua the information they find online. i am so pleased she is here today and has come up through the storm to join us and i am a senior, but there are an incredible seniors out there and as i say tremendously untapped resources. joe is a north carolina and his concern was he wanted to help

all of the farmers leaving their farms because they could not continue to live on the farm and what he did was create a farmers market where they could sell their produce and then he realized at the end of the day they had all this produce left. he learned how to take that produce no matter how small it was and turned it and converted it into biofuel. his next idea is if we can convert it into biofuel, why can't we have people create products for this. so the farmers are now creating literally the need to start thet their small businesses or maintain their farms. it was the capitalization to start this and so they now create products and it's turned into a huge business and it's also a social program called the

draining of black america and if you don't know if it is an extraordinary program. and you have heard a lot of statistics this morning but again, we'd like to say that yes, seniors are creating businesses and models and entrepreneurship is the definitely come a definitely trumping aging. i won't go into the stories that we have, but we have 34 million now self identified seniors who want to start businesses, and that it does not even touch the millions of seniors who are totally intimidated by the word on japan -- entrepreneur. my senior entrepreneurship program works because it has an online curriculum for the self identified seniors. it is a free online course work specifically designed for seniors needs. but i'm in innovation fellow in

massachusetts and i was talking with the director and i said what about all of the millions of seniors who are intimidated by this word? we must find a way to tap into their entrepreneurial spirit and we created a program called eprov studio that has entrepreneurial thought and action but we catalyze it through the improvisation and it works extraordinarily well because the two key words in the improvisation are yes and. so it is positive development. if you put an idea out there and work in the community with other senior entrepreneurs or other seniors who are thinking of exploring entrepreneurship and the yes and helps them leverage the resources they have at hand and in the workshop in terms of

working together to come up with an idea. and that is so powerful as opposed to most programs that are either or. either you do this or that. improvisation is turned out to be an extraordinarily effective tool. we officially launched the first studio to 40 people in florida over the weekend. we had hoped to catch it at 30, but the demand for this is absolutely extraordinary. we launched it in florida and we have had invitations from 12 countries from australia, india to create this program as well as 40 cities in the united states and soviet literally as senior entrepreneurs have the tiger by the tail. most importantly, we have two door plaintiff of the number of seniors wanting to start businesses, people want to

explore. they want to explore starting a business of their own. how do i decode my entrepreneurial history and that is one of the things that we do in the studio. one of our exercises is a decade by decade starting from 60 to 70 to 80 the matter how old they are, we ask them to please identify an accomplishment they are very proud of that they have achieved each decade. what we try to do is get them to understand that they have literally been thinking entrepreneurially all their lives no matter what they are doing whether they are raising children or working in offices and kernel or external entrepreneurs and we have one woman that came up with a story who had -- and ie over time?

>> i'm going to insert the statement and also a letter from aarp that is supportive of the hearing and i will be for my questions. senator collins. >> i know that senator scott -- i wonder if i can allow him -- >> senator scott. >> thank you very much mr. chairman and ranking member. as i listen to your words and comments, i was thrilled frankly. it's a great panel and i will walk away with a couple of words for the year. my questions really have to do with how does a small business understand the pain and the agony with which one enters into being a small business owner i

think of the experienced seniors have had in their lifetime that allows us to understand why so many more small business owners and seniors actually succeed at a level that is higher than the folks that are getting involved. they need to learn from you the importance. there is a push on the access to capital which is where i want to focus my question before i have to leave. i had a difficult time finding the capital and as i started to succeed i realized the regulatory burdens and red tape, the tax code don't lend themselves to succeeding in the success in iraq like t and i wor the comments from the entrepreneurs on the thoughts of improving the tax code if you have any to keep the capital so you can invent your own money in business as opposed to looking for ways to fight a capital

which you are talking about a high-priced to continue your business. if you are having thoughts on ways that you would ask us to contemplate the discussion on the tax reform to benefit seniors for tax credits if you have any in mind or the red tape that you have to go through from the local to the states to the federal levels a combination of which i would imagine would be kind of a stranglehold at times. >> i used to have black hair when i started. [laughter] when i venture into the tax credits we have to build facilities in order to provide the services, and the problem, the main problem is the irs has the program, the capital. these are three agencies that i work with.

the u.s. has the capital operating with the studies are needed and then the hhs has the medicaid waivers, and they don't talk to each other. they work in silence. there is no national capital program in the united states. each state -- each agency has the only two programs. and just an example you can probably help us solve when you work with tax credits, they have regulations that actually work getting a license system. there's a multitude of regulations each agency has that interfere with each other. they say you cannot force services onto somebody living in assisted living. the license says if you do not provide a service, we take your

license away. and this is the kind of constant conflict that occurs on the time on this because there is no coordination at the federal level within the different funding sources. >> the interagency cooperation -- >> it's vital. >> -- before having that one step constant -- concept. >> i am interested in the unemployment benefits. seniors who are unemployed have a 6% chance of being reemployed. the chance is that they need money to start a business that they do not need a lot of money. in many cases they can start a capital business with a thousand dollar loan. and if they could use that unemployment insurance -- right now if you are unemployed you

have to wait for 18 months reporting that you are looking for a job and if there was a way to take that money that you get faster on employment benefits and put it into the first entrepreneurship education and exploring if you want to be an entrepreneur, the government can say we will give you the money but not visit at home in a dream up the next business created so you can get entrepreneurial training so you can understand if you can do this and then start the business. so that is just one. i know we talk about it in the inter departmental work that they are very small initiatives where this is helping senior onto pillars isn't linked to take millions of dollars. >> they are pulling on my coattail because i have run out of time. the next time we have an opportunity we can bring in the small-business communities together to talk about the

micro- lending because there may be a component that can be solved in the microloans. thank you very much for your time. >> senator collins. >> ironically i'm going to start where my colleague senator scott left off. it seems to me that it may be harder for seniors to get the financing they need. and i see a lot of nodding heads on the panel even though it may be a small amount. i love the idea of allowing them via a long-term unemployed to use their unemployment benefits at a startup loan or well defined business plan to start a business. but i want to go across the panel and talk about the

financing issue because i can see where some lenders would be reluctant to invest in a seniors new business, not knowing who would take it over, whether or not they are going to run out of time or energy or decided that they want more leisure time perhaps because of stereotypes not knowing that they are more likely to succeed than a business operated by our younger citizens. so let's talk about first of all is it harder for seniors to get financing, and second, what can we do about that? often times it's a very little amount of money that's necessary but that maybe hard to take it

out of savings that are there for retirement purposes. we have micro- loan programs that are targeted at seniors the way that we do for the veterans for example or other groups and bible starts with ms. montgomery. start with ms. montgomery. let's go down the panel on this issue. >> at the sba we understand that entrepreneurs have a challenge of accessing capital, which is why we are committed to opening up doors to access capital for them to start their businesses. the sba has a number of products designed to encourage lenders to be underrepresented and underserved communities such as the encore entrepreneurs.

loan products that start at a lower amount we have a small loan advantage program and then additionally, the micro- loan programs that are used by the non- depository of lenders those loans can go as low as about $500. what we do through the resource partners is to help individuals budgeted hours identifying and no where those resources exist because a lot of times people don't know about micro- lending programs, and so our volunteers at the small business development centers and women's business centers they have the relationships in these institutions and can't guide and direct the entrepreneurs.

>> thank you for the question and referencing bruce. bruce started his business with a very small amount of capital. it was not being funded. what we know about the client's court is less than 10% actually get back financing for their business. as a banker by trading the within years ago we did not blend into the startup environment. for reasons that made sense, it was too risky. of those entrepreneurs that come to see us many are self funded through the savings and not through retirement. i personally don't believe it's the right thing to do to reach into the four o. one k. and there are vehicles that will allow you to do that, but as a defined senior now i'm not

willing to reach into that and that's the right and prudent thing to do and we wouldn't encourage others. i think that the micro- loan opportunities make a great deal of sense. the opportunities that are offered in the past and still offered like the patriot express i think there is value in something along those lines and i like the idea speaking with someone that's a little more mature and that has no hair that has that experience and understands the importance and has either a fixed payrolls or has lensing responsibilities or in some way have been employed over time and know how to operate in a business environment. those are the type of risk i think all thinkers including myself would look for at the time. there are things that could be valuable and above all i think

it is critical that we all continue to promote the importance of the senior entrepreneurship and the value to bring to communities and to our economy. >> i know my time has expired so i will get above responses from the other three on the next round. i tried to do that as well as the chairman but i do not think that i succeeded. >> i just want to say at the outset that my experience in the score in particular has been wonderful. they are really committed to helping the small businesses. i liked th like the idea very m. i just went through two and a half years of trying to get a loan from a bank in miami, and it was a disaster. i don't know if it was backed

that i would assume so and i have to give my house as collateral to get $100,000. it is somebody like that to 32 mortgage guaranty loans. the problem is the revenues. we don't have a sufficient revenue to back the loan than they have to take your house. >> microloans are hugely effective because to mitigate the seniors financial risk and encourage them to start small we have been specifically working with global programs. we also encourage people and if the government could open the access to information about programs like the chip start.com

if we could make them more inclusive for the seniors because there is a lot aimed at young people there is no language that includes seniors and our greatest example is a 88-year-old grandmother that started a company with a 3,000-dollar funds from kick starter and this is a beautiful example of the aspects and opportunities. her grandson saw that she decorated her own cane and he said can you make more of those and he said if i have lots of time. and so he said while how about selling them and they said i have to get all the supplies so he launched by kickstart campaign and within three days she had over $3,000 for the business which she markets on etsy. so you have all kinds of just

interrelated ways to take a small business finance forward through the social media markets and online business. it's just a fabulous opportunity for seniors and also a seniors with disabilities. and we must not rule them out. a huge percentage of them are self employed or have very small businesses. thank you. >> doctor o'neill. >> thank you chairman collins to join this passionate panel i must say also great data to back up the passion. on this point it is absolutely true that the adult that do not self fund their startups which is the majority of allies say that it is access to startup capital and it is kind of a paradox because for the banks of the seniors are the key clients and they have a majority of

assets, but yet the banks do not completely understand the need for this population. one of the things that we have done is bring together the cross sector groups to understand the phenomenon of the senior entrepreneurship and i think that going through, the microloans and the crowd funding to the other technologies like that needs to be made accessible. the great thing is they are able to provide advice as well as loans and that has been a key thing we have seen in other countries like the uk they have the organizations that specifically target for the long-term unemployed. the long-term unemployed especially when they are younger have a disproportionate chance of staying unemployed for a long time and this is a segment that deserves our focus and attention. >> thank you mr. chairman.

>> mr. chairman, thank you very much for calling this hearing. it's an interesting topic and it's one that i think there is a lot of scrutiny by members of the united states and i would include the house and not as well. it's interesting because when i look at a state like the one i represent in pennsylvania, we have about 2 million seniors in the state, and when i can consider what they've done in their lives to that point in time, it is extraordinary. when you think about the -- i'm kind of at the end of the younger end of the baby boom generation. when i can figur record the genn just before the baby boom from the folks that might be in their 80s now or close to that, they have lived not just through a remarkable time period but they have contributed to debate could substantially what we take for

granted today. in a sense we take for granted that we have a middle class. they built it and it is built especially after world war ii. and if you consider the contribution that they made it to several of the wars and defend it idescended in the coud preserving the freedom for the ability they demonstrated to adapt to change, and a lot of what i hear from the witnesses today and from the constituents back home is that when they reach a certain point in their life if they had been on show viewers the week or -- entrepreneurs, they run up against as you outlined today a couple of challenges. one of them is just the challenge that comes with

financial insecurity and i'm not sure there has ever been a time in history when there have been more reasons to feel that insecurity. the volatility of the economy has never been more apparent i don't think in the last couple of years. certainly not in the last deca decade. i think one other reason for the sense of insecurity is washington. they don't see washington working together on a regular basis. it's been a little better lately that they have a two-year budg budget. that provides a lessening or definition on that security but there's been a lot of security when people don't see this place working. so there've been plenty of reasons to be worried in the

technological change so i see this issue as both a financial security issue as well as a basic dignity issue. our self worth is tied up in what we do and how we do it and if you spend most of your life being an entrepreneur creating jobs and wealth and being successful when you hit a certain age it doesn't make a lot of sense so far all those reasons i am going to leave a little bit of time for questio questions. let me go from my right to the left and ask you -- because around here if you make ten recommendations you probably won't get to ten in terms of the enactment of the new legislation or pushing the administration to doing something were insisting that an agency do something.

so i will limit everyone because i don't have a lot of time but if there is one thing starting with you, doctor mac, you would hope with the house and the senate would do the next year to foster better policy or bring about a better opportunity i should say for the encore entrepreneurial opportunities what would you recommend if you had to do a little down to one either legislation or policy. >> thank you. since we say encore entreprene entrepreneur, i will take its specific in that sense. we are talking about the people who go into the self-employment after 50 and this is important to know that there is about one third of the people who are self-employment after 5 50 camen after 50 or so the other two thirds of people have been self-employed for another career

if they are very different and they need our help because they are the ones that are disproportionately likely to have been on employed or to have anyway been more pushed into entrepreneurship or self-employment in the groups that were there before. so i come back to the idea of the unemployment benefits because i think that that has shown it in other places to have made a big difference in getting that group back into the labor force back into creating the tax revenues and back into the contributions for the social security and medicare. and altogether the most important thing is when people are our self-employed and doing the work in their passion we have seen that they work much longer. it helps arthroscopic terminus late.

[inaudible] for my number one priority would be to change the government attitude towards seniors. as it is happening across the globe we need to think of seniors as assets and not like abilities. it is always in that negative, and i think that we have to turn that into a positive. and as i was quoted in "the new york times" over the weekend we have to start thinking of this not in the gloom and doom terms. we have to think of seniors in the liabilities they are a silver lining in this country. what they can contribute they are not a silver tsunami. they are a silver lining.

and bbc they will be yielding the golden dividends. >> there are quite a few of them. what thebut they have problems s accessing the government especially for the purpose that you mentioned. most of the work requires the changing policychange in policyt necessarily introducing the inflation i was a lobbyist once and so i understand the process. so there is something called the innovation and civic participation and he has been in effect for four or five years. they do not have a phone. they do not answer e-mails and have been trying to talk to them for the last four years. there is something like that that could be set and identified the staff that would actually connect us with the federal government and the agencies.

somebody that will coordinate the efforts of the entrepreneu entrepreneurs. >> with senator nelson i should call you. >> sorry to limit it to one. >> as you would anticipate, you would hope that we would have continued access to quality training and mentoring and support for these senior entrepreneurs who have many great qualities and knowledge and need a bit of assistance in applying that in the business environment. the continued support and to continue to have that access to the score and the small business

development centers and other programs i think our important to the success of that. >> i would echo mr. yancey and continue the support of the small business administration so we can continue to do this work and as i stated in my testimony, we have always been serving. our resource partners have always been serving the population and allowing us to do more for your support will be the most beneficial. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> what was that government office that you said it did not answer the phone? [laughter] it's called the office and it was actually created under the mandate to identify capital and human and financial capital to bring about community solutions.

the office of social innovation into civic participation. the director is mr. green. >> we will see if he will answer the call. >> i'm sure that he will. >> since you started the business, although you have quite a bit of experience in business before your senior years, what do you wish you would have known before taking on the task of organizing the business? >> i think if i would have known i wouldn't have done it. [laughter] said if it is better i can -- i think that for me i was very

naïve. i think that for me to understand that it was not going to be easy. but there were going to be a lot of people who would think that i am a goner, but i do not have a succession plan and who is going to take over the lack of capital. there is a lot of ups and downs. what is good for me is i learned to fail very often. i failed at almost everything i've done in my life and if i had learned before i started that would have been. but i would do it again. i got a miami senior living

solutions. >> that's about it. [laughter] >> and also, it has brought me here in front of you, which is a success. >> doctor o'neill, interestingly we have a new healthcare law. a senior citizen all their life they work for a company, they retire, maybe their company doesn't provide for health insurance, maybe it does, but if they suddenly find themselves just before that period of medicare at age 65, does the fact that health insurance is available now through the health-insurance exchanges help

at all in making the decisions to start up a business? >> this is a very interesting question and we actually have quite a bit of research around this question. so what you are really referring to is this phenomenon sometimes described as job loss or job anchor where your health insurance is tied to your workplace so you may or may not want to leave work to pursue an entrepreneurial path because as we have heard there are lots of risks and entrepreneurship and to add on top of that, the risk of not being covered if the health condition arises is going to be a big one. we also know and many of us have cited statistics that it is exactly in the 55 to 64 year age group where we have high entrepreneurial activity already. so, this is a group that is

probably, you know, very likely, you know, more likely to have a pre-existing condition, too. let's be clear about that. so, what they are is they are studies of the surveys of what stops people from pursuing an on-chip areal path people often cite in many surveys on the lack of options to get health care beyond there. and we have seen in a natural experiments where some form of health care has ruled out that are outside of the workplace that the rate of entrepreneurship has gone up in a recent survey by the brookings institution think the aca may unleash more people into the market. >> about putting that aside we have studies that looked at the difference in the probability of going into entrepreneurship at 65 versus 64 and it's about 13%

higher. in the 20 studies by economists it seems to be to indicate that this should have some sort of a boost. >> i cannot comment on the overall effect but it's a very important component that could be very substantial. >> who is study was that that said that a million new jobs would be created? >> that is the brookings institution that we could make available to you. the other study of the 64, 65 transition is a kaufman study and it seems they are a source of some of the most interesting as a foundation that really supports entrepreneurship in america. they have a lot of interesting work that we could all learn from. >> to what degree does the aca gives certain tax credits for

businesses 25 employees and under play into this? >> i think i will turn over to some of my panel. i'm less familiar with the small business tax credit. >> that is a tax question that would apply to any age. tell us more about the economic benefits of senior interviewer entrepreneurs. >> individuals staying in the workforce longer, which as i mentioned, this is a well-established fact of the self-employed if they indicate they are going to retire later and they do, that of course is a tremendous benefit to the society. people do work longer and do

things they enjoy. we have benefits from the tax revenue and from the continued contributions to the social programs. we have some labor shortages in some areas. in the standards of living in retirement and particularly for people who were unemployed for long periods getting back into the workforce that has obvious benefits. we also know that more than half of small-busines small businesse united states or age 50 and ov over. it's a net producer of jobs and the economy so to the extent that we are supporting this, this has additional major effects in terms of the business

creation, job creation and all of the spillover effects. >> with your permission i think at least one major piece is that the older you get, the more involved you get in the social issues. so i think that the entrepreneurs like myself are definitely concerned with solving social problems like homelessness, like children so that i'm sure has a spillover effect. if someone is holding the social problem, after all. >> in our program, we started with over 60% and now it is closer to 70% of the entrepreneurs that are starting these businesses. as if it is going to have a huge environmental impact. >> anyone on the public if it's going to take away youth

employment but the studies show it is the opposite. comment on that. >> we had one of the individuals that started the company, and the company grew so much faster than he had anticipated that he had to hire his children to help scale that organization, so it works both ways with the seniors and the inter generational startups but also the seniors who create jobs or creating jobs for young people. we think prosperity knows no age boundary and it's true though the jobs they create, everyone benefits and the study from the association for the enterprise opportunity, as it is documented that if just one in three small businesses higher just one additional employee, the unemployment rate in the united states would be zero.

>> i just want to talk about in my particular case we create on an average 50 new jobs with benefits usually young mothers with little children. and so we have created in the past 17 years over 7,000 new jobs with benefits throughout the 23 states that we are working in. we hire all people, but of course. [laughter] >> i think that we all recognize the contribution and so it stands to reason as more senior entrepreneurs start, more opportunities for employment and younger people and others and many of these being entry-level positions with training would become available. so i think the more that we can encourage this fantastic phenomenon for the better that we are going to be as a country again and as a community.

>> again, small business ownership and small business in general have a great impact on our economy. and so engaging so they have the opportunity to create new jobs will only benefit not only additional order individuals, but as well as younger people who are able to seek employment with those opportunities. >> senator collins any final comments? >> thank you mr. tremaine. i just want to thank the panel today. i think that this has been a fascinating hearing that is really going to help increase public awareness of the critical and growing role senior entrepreneurs and on core entrepreneurs are playing in the economy. i loved the characterization of

the changing demographics as being a silver lining rather than a silvers in omni that is a wonderful wine and i hope you don't mind if i start using it. but it was interesting. i must say prior to the chairman suggesting this hearing, i had no idea but more older people were starting businesses than a very younger parts of the populations of this has been an eye opener for me as well. thank you mr. chairman. >> senator collins, i am frequently reminded and you are as well, in our capacities as a senior senator of our respective states that upon introduction, people get tongue tied and instead of saying the senior senator from florida, they introduced me as the senior

citizen of florida. [laughter] >> it's so true. it happens to me as well. >> this has been a tremendous hearing. the meeting is adjourned.

house democrats are holding their retreat in cambridge maryland to speak tomorrow morning bu that coming up shorty serving with justice ginsburg i have come to admire her more and more each day as a judge and a colleague and a friend. they say that life on the court

can be poised and i didn't realize until recently to focus on the outside. too many of them she is a hip-hop icon. i'm going to disappear from my first prop. [laughter] the notorious rbg. [laughter] they sell these truly. she's the subject of an opera, comic book, tumbler and blog. she is a bobble head. [laughter]

it serves as a metaphor for making the history. when it was first laid out in 1823 they laid it out in nine square blocks with alternating large wide boulevards. as they were laying out around on the wagon headed towards the river to the market downstream down to this takes the engineers had laid out and the angled road to lay out in georgia.

the situation in syria has become a matter of national security here in the u.s.. secretary johnson also touched on such issues as cybersecurity, immigration, and emergenc emergy preparedness since being confirmed by the senate last hatand w. hosted by the wilson center in washington, this is just undere] an hour. [applause] >> thank you. i do want to acknowledge two other people in the audience today. firsfet is the fema administrat,

craig fugate who everyone agreeu has done a great job in the t leadership of that government agency. i want to acknowledge the coast guard is a strong leader of the united states coast guard i know the number of people in the coast guard have thenu leadershe and the admiral is retiring in may after a distinguished career in public service and the defense of the nation of ther in coast guard. i begin by thanking the woodrow wilson center and the aspen security group for inviting me speak today.for yo i want to thank jane harmon ford your leadership and continued service to the country and willingness to be a supporter, mentor and advisor to me when

she advises, i listen. as many of you have heard me say before, september 11 is my birthday. on september 11, 2001, i was in the private practice of the law in new york city like millions of others i was an eyewitness to the events of that day i watched in shock as a beautiful serene and ordinary workday as an instance to one of the worst days in american history. while thousands of people and ultimately the nation coped with a tragedy that they are too poor was unimaginable. .. the department of homeland security was born. it was out of that day that my personal commitment to the mission of homeland security was born. for the next several minutes, i would've to take the opportunity to attain has provided me to spell out my vision for the department i am privileged to lead.

too often used is that we are in a time of transition. the department of homeland security must always be any time of transition. we must be agile and vigilant in continually adapting to evolving threats and hazards. we must stay one step ahead of the next terror attack, the next cyber attack, and the next natural disaster. the most important part of my day as secretary is the most important part of my day as secretary is the morning intel brief, which ranges in scope from the latest terrorist plotting to a weather map. we monitor world events real time and take action, when necessary, to confront and respond to these threats. in support of russian authorities, we are keeping a close eye on the sochi olympics, which are beginning pretty much as i speak. within the last 48 hours, we have, out of an abundance of caution, issued advisories to air car