Tribune staff reports

Mary Ellen Jaynes of Seymour recently joined the Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corp.’s Southern Loan Committee.

Jaynes is senior vice president and chief credit officer of JCB in Seymour.

The committee works with local lenders to provide loans to small business owners from the U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loan program.

The program is a partnership between a bank lender who provides a conventional loan for 50 percent of the project and the statewide committee that typically provides 40 percent of the financing. The borrower is responsible for the remaining 10 percent, a lower down payment than conventional loans require, according to a news release from Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corp.

The resulting terms can give small business owners long-term, fixed rate financing that is more affordable than conventional financing.

“As a lender, I’ve used the SBA 504 program with several borrowers,” Jaynes said. “All the borrowers are small business owners with narrow profit margins. The 504 program is a benefit for them because of its low rate and low down payment, both of which are important to the owner of a business trying to gain a foothold in the marketplace.”

Indiana Statewide operates with a board of directors that oversees operations and three regional loan committees covering northern, central and southern Indiana. The regional loan committees provide geographic specific input when loan applications are reviewed. The statewide committee’s investment in more than 1,120 Hoosier companies since 1983 tops $459 million.

Since Congress created the 504 program, SBA 504 loans have funded more than $62 billion to 130,000-plus small businesses. In turn, those small firms have created or retained more than 2.1 million jobs for the U.S. economy, according to the news release.