By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
PROVIDENCE – In the past year alone, the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s loan programs have helped to create or retain more than 400 jobs across the state, the EDC reported today.
“Tough economic conditions like those we now face make programs like the Small Business Loan Fund (SBLF) and Micro Loan Program especially valuable,” Saul Kaplan, the EDC’s executive director, said in a statement this morning. “You cannot grow jobs without capital. These programs help Rhode Island companies to develop new products and services, enter new markets and create new jobs.”
Since June 2007, the agency has awarded 12 loans totaling $2.6 million to small and mid-sized businesses across Rhode Island. Its loan programs are funded through awards from the U.S. Economic Development Agency.
The SBLF was established in 1986 to help retain viable businesses, promote job growth and retention, support skill and wage upgrades, attract new businesses and support viable companies that cannot obtain financing through traditional sources.
The fund’s micro-loan component was launched in August 2005 to assist small and minority-owned businesses with fewer than five employees and annual revenue of less than $300,000. The EDC initially aside $500,000 for such loans, but in the program’s second year, it increased that set-aside by 50 percent to $750,000, citing high demand. “To date, $600,000 has been deployed,” the EDC said today.
Coventry-based Concordia Manufacturing LLC received a $500,000 loan this spring, to aid its medical products division’s $1.6 million expansion into Warwick. “Access to these funds will play an integral role in our company’s expansion efforts into the biomedical space,” President and CEO Randal Spencer said at the time. Concordia currently has a staff of 57, and plans to hire another 10 to 15 people within the next two years, as it expands its manufacturing and R&D capabilities. (READ MORE)
Other recent recipients of EDC loans include trucking, transport and logistics company KC Enterprises LLC of North Kingstown, receiving $250,000; food products wholesaler E.B. Thomsen Inc. of East Providence, receiving $250,000 to help acquire a beverage company; Court Drive LLC (Orion Retail) of Smithfield, receiving $130,000 to expand its cabinet and trade-booth manufacturing plant; American Partners Inc. of Pawtucket, an IT contract recruiting startup, receiving $250,000; PSP LLC of Smithfield, receiving $500,000 to help purchase precision parts manufacturer P&C Quality Turned Components Inc., also known as Precision Source. (READ MORE); bead manufacturer Greene Plastics of Hopkinton, receiving $500,000 for working capital; and Malco Saw Co. Inc. of Cranston, receiving $125,000 to help buy out a family member.
Receiving micro-loans of $35,000 apiece were Green Grocer, to launch a small organic and health care store in Portsmouth; New England Syrup Co. Inc., to provide working capital for the Smithfield syrup maker; CoreSmart Interactive LLC, to provide working capital for the Providence software firm; and Jungle Jim Preschool, to launch a day care center in Warwick.
“We are modernizing all of RIEDC’s finance programs to create new jobs and to better reflect Rhode Island’s economic development goals,” Kaplan said.
“Creating a set of financing tools that optimally address Rhode Island’s economic challenges and opportunities is critical to growing a 21st-century innovation economy that produces higher wage jobs at every wage level.”
The R.I. Economic Development Corporation is a quasi-public agency established to promote business development, preservation and expansion in the state and undertake port projects in Rhode Island. Additional information, including the EDC’s 2008 Growth Plan, is available at www.riedc.com.
