Federal layoffs close Guam SBA office

The Small Business Administration Guam Branch Office, which has offered local businesses and startups free advice, loan assistance, and help during disasters for decades will be shuttered, branch Executive Director Ken Lujan confirmed Friday.

Lujan told the Pacific Daily News that the Guam branch, which covers all of Micronesia for the SBA Hawaii District Office, was caught up in SBA’s recently announced, “force reduction.”

On March 21, the SBA under the Trump White House announced plans to layoff of 43% of its workforce.

But there’s only one SBA employee at the Guam Branch Office: Lujan.

The office director said that he got a same-day notice on Friday that he was being let go after 40 years running the Guam branch office.

“As a result of being the only employee, we got no choice but to close the office,” Lujan said.

According to Lujan, the office has been operating on Guam since Typhoon Karen flattened the island in 1962.

He said he’s been on the ground coordinating the arrival SBA disaster response teams from Hawaii after Typhoons Paka, Omar, Pongsona and, most recently, Mawar.

“The disaster team calls me up and says, ‘Ken, we got some people coming from Hawaii to be landing in Guam a couple hours, we need you to set some things up,” he said.

After typhoons and even after COVID-19 struck the island, SBA was on the spot to help provide disaster loans and grants to keep businesses and residents on their feet.

“We were involved in helping the community survive,” Lujan said. “With the loan programs we had and the grant moneys that we issued out during COVID.”

“If it weren’t for that, lot of businesses would have closed. A lot of employees who have lost jobs, they wouldn’t be able to continue to survive,” he noted.

Besides disaster response, Lujan said he’s helped get SBA guaranteed loans to new and existing businesses, who might not be able get financial support without federal support. Advice to new upstarts, and businesses looking to get into federal contracting, have also been offered free of charge.

“If we don’t have that capability here, then that can’t help grow the economy,” he said, which was a concern as both Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas faced economic uncertainty.

‘We don’t have a voice’

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None of those services will go away entirely—but there will be no SBA representatives in this time zone able to assist locals with SBA loans they secured. That’s a big deal, he said, especially for older clients who may have trouble using computers.

Nor will there be anyone employed to advocate for local issues to the SBA, he said.

“You won’t have a someone to speak for the for the community. We don’t have a voice,” Lujan added.

He said SBA’s partners at University of Guam Small Business Development Center can still provide counseling and advice to local businesses, but the program is also partially funded by the SBA.

While that funding is secure for the year, Lujan said he’s concerned that federal downsizing could push further in years to come.

“After touching the labor force within the federal agencies, they may be now looking at program rejection,” he said. “But who’s to say?”

Lujan said he’s fortunate to have “all my ducks in a row” as far as retirement.

He said he’s been contemplating retirement for some time, and hoping to get some funding so that he could hire on and train up someone to replace himself, and continue providing the same service to the community.

The executive director said he’s built the office up to what it is over the years that he’s been on the job.

“Unfortunately, I’ve been waiting for the last four years, and now see a light at the tunnel,” he said.

But decades helping folks after disasters has helped him keep up a positive outlook.

“I even say to a lot of people when a typhoon hits, I say, ‘For every calamity, there’s an opportunity.’ So this may give me an opportunity to do something else that I haven’t done in 40 years.”

Residents and business owners looking to contact the Guam SBA branch should instead reach out to the district office in Hawaii. Two employees at the Hawaii office were also let go, Lujan told the PDN.

Call 808-541-2990 or email hawaiigeneral@sba.gov.