i want to tell one side story and then i want to introduce darlene miller. after last year, after winning the national award, going home that weekend, it was a full weekend. a lot of interviews, activities, we had an international delegation coming to our facility. we met with them sunday night. that sunday night happened to be the evening that the tornado hit in joplin, missouri. so the next morning one of my staff members came to me and she said, we don't know what we don't know, but everybody is scanning trying to get information about the tornado that decimated the hospital. there was just little information in those early hours, and so we thought, you know, as i stood on that stage as i thought about the moment with administrator mills and the moment i felt the appreciation and respect for the opportunity to be recognized as a national small business person, i said, you know, let's do something that we haven't done per se. we took a mobile unit. i'm involved in mobile hospitals. we took one of our units and put it on the road to joplin, not even knowing

other business leaders include darlene miller the council of jobs and competitiveness. this is just over an hour. >> please welcome administrator mills. [ applause ] >> good morning again. i am delighted to be here as you know. as i said earlier at breakfast, national small business week is maybe my favorite part of the year. i want to start out though by again for those of you who missed breakfast, i know you were all there by giving my thanks and asking you to join me to give a warm set of thanks to my colleague, my partner in this, our deputy administrator marie johns. thank you. [ applause ] if you think i travel a lot to your regions, marie is out every single week and really doing the work of this agency. this is a ground game we call it. and we have i think really enjoyed meeting all of you out in your respective areas and regions and visiting your businesses. but today it's even more of a pleasure to have you here with us. this is my chance to talk to you about everything that has been going on in the world of small business. and i think the first place to start

and darlene miller, who will be up on stage with us shortly, has been instrumental -- i won't steal your thunder. she's got some great programs, skill building and precision manufacturing, which is her company's area. and we're working on supply chains. many of you are part of a supply chain serving america's largest companies or the federal government. we have just started with ibm working on a whole set of programs called supplier connection. part of our american supplier initiative to make sure that small companies can find those opportunities and that big companies can find the small companies. we have right now with ibm 16 major companies like citi bank, facebook, kather pillar. one of the things i'm going to ask everybody here is go take a look and see if your business works for this supplier portal because we're trying to get more small businesses into -- to be signed up. we have over 4,000 now. so supplier connection. we're going to be talking about this more over the next day and a half. this is what national small business week is all about. it's about opening the doors. it's a

[applause] i like to introduce darlene miller, the president and ceo of permac in issues. darling is the owner and ceo, -- darlene is the owner and ceo. customers around the globe in a variety of industries including medical, transportation bill. they have received a number of awards. darlene was the minnesota state winner and the 2008 national chamber of commerce business person for the entire u.s., has been appointed to sit on the president's council for jobs and competitiveness. darlene. [applause] >> thank you and good morning. .'m excited to be here today i have 38 employees and we're in the -- we do a lot of things in aerospace, defense, and have made some great connections to the sba. that is my real job i do everyday but i'm excited to serve on the president's council for job competitiveness and be a voice for small business. i believe the president and all of us have listened to a lot of recommendations and made a lot of the changes as administrator mills aluded to earlier and many other areas such as regulatory that we're working on. i am excited to be here and t

[applause] i like to introduce darlene miller, the president and ceo of permac industries. darlene is the owner and ceo. customers around the globe in a variety of industries including medical, transportation bill. they have received a number of awards. darlene was the minnesota state winner and the 2008 national chamber of commerce business person for the entire u.s., has been appointed to sit on the president's council for jobs and competitiveness. darlene. [applause] >> thank you and good morning. i'm excited to be here today. i have 38 employees and we're in the -- we do a lot of things in aerospace, defense, and have made some great connections through the sba. that is my real job i do everyday but i'm excited to serve on the president's council for job competitiveness and be a voice for small business. i believe the president and all of us have listened to a lot of recommendations and made a lot of the changes as administrator mills alluded to earlier and many other areas such as regulatory that we're working on. i am excited to be here and to answer any questions tha

oslo the president and ceo, darlene miller. that is beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.ert is a republican in detroit. small business owner? caller: yes, i am. host: tell us about it. caller: i've been in business for the last 12 years. i ran into some problems -- i was one and where i could find some help to get my capital started back up. host: what kind of business? caller: a security service. host: what are you looking for? caller: financial issues. guest: there is so much hope that is out there and sometimes small businesses do not know about this help. visit to local office. the sba has offices all around the country and we have a great office in michigan. i would encourage you to bvisit the small business development centers and look at the score program. those folks are incredible about helping small business. a lot of times you're dealing with eight seasoned executive who is volunteering their time to help small business. they have been there and done that. i encourage you to reach out. you can go online and searched these resources out. it doesn't have to cost