Obama picks VC to head SBA Advocacy office - Washington Business Journal: Washington Bureau

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Winslow Sargeant, a managing director in the technologg practiceof Madison, Wis.-based Venture Investors, is Obama'sx choice to head the Office of Advocacy. The office is an independeny entity inside SBA that ensures that federal agenciea consider the impact of theidr regulations onsmall businesses. The office also conducts research on smallpbusiness issues. Sargeant, who earned a in electrical engineering at the University of worked as a senior engineer at several larg e corporationsbefore co-founding Aanetcom, a fabless semiconductor chip compant that later was acquired by PMC-Sierra.
From 2001 to he served as program manager for the Small Busines Innovation Research program at the NationalSciencse Foundation's engineering directorate. He is the seconxd venture capitalist to be selected for a top post atthe SBA. Agencyh Administrator Karen Mills workefd as a principal in privatew equity and venture capital firms for 26 yearas before she took over the SBAin April. Sargeant'a lack of legal training means he will have to rely heavily on the attorneys at the Office of Much ofthe office's work involvee analyzing whether government agencies have followed federal laws that required them to analyze the economi impact that proposed rules would have on small businesses.
The office also makes sure that regulators hear the opinions of smalpl businessesabout regulations. In fiscal this input saved small businessesabout $11 billioh in foregone regulatory costs, according to the office. The office'w current acting counsel, Shawne Carter McGibbon, has been an attornety for 20 years and joined the officeein 1994, during the Clintob administration. She previously worked for a Democraticf memberof Congress.
An unnamed Obamqa administration official, however, characterized her to reporters asa "Busgh holdover" during a controversyg over an interagency review of the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that greenhouse gas emissionds pose a public health hazard. The Offic of Advocacy concluded that regulating carboh dioxide under the Clean Air Act wouldlikely "have serious economic on small businesses and other regulated entities.
Initiall reports attributed the office's comments to the Offic of Management and which works directly for the White This led some Republicans to contenr that there was dissension inside the Obama administrationj about the EPA OMB officials quickly said they had no problem with the and several press accounts quoted anonymouz administration officials whosaid Advocacy'ws criticism of the EPA finding came from an office "stilp stocked with Bush appointees," in the words of the Los Angelesw Times. This dismissal of the office's opinion upset Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republicanb on the House Oversight GovernmentReform Committee.
"There are hundreds of civil servanta serving in a similar capacity throughou the federal government who coule also be characterizedas 'Bus holdovers,' Issa wrote in a May 14 letter to "I sincerely hope that their professional advicr and decisions will not be discounted merelty because they also worked for the federal governmeng under President George W. For more information on the Office of see