Brett Ginther and Terica Taylor opened Deception Pass Tours in October 2006. During their first season, the couple offered curious land-dwellers a scenic aquatic adventure onboard a leased boat. By the second season, Ginther and Taylor decided to invest in their own boat.

In hopes of securing a loan, they consulted a lender at Horizon Bank.

“We weren’t sure if we could get a traditional loan because the boat was so expensive,” Terica said.

The lender told them that as a small business, they qualified for loan assistance through the U.S. Small Business Administration, also called SBA.

“I don’t know if we could have gotten the loan without that,” Taylor said.

Last week Nancy Porzio, SBA district director, spoke to Oak Harbor Chamber members about The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on Feb 17.

The recovery act allows the SBA to increase the amount of loans made to small businesses with an infusion of $730 million provided to the SBA to cover a higher percentage of business loans, temporarily reduce or eliminate loan fees, improve SBA’s technology systems and increase staffing for new programs.

On March 16, President Obama announced that the Treasury Department will commit up to $15 billion to open the secondary markets for small business owners. The department will also implement new requirements “to better track small business lending by banks and unveiled guidance from the IRS for an expanded ‘carryback’ provision that will offer many small businesses a tax refund,” according to SBA officials.

“Everything is changing so quickly with this stimulus bill,” Porzio said, launching into the new opportunities afforded to small businesses by the newly-announced Treasury Department funding.

Porzio had prepared a PowerPoint presentation for the chamber, but the economy is changing so rapidly, she decided to wing the talk.

The small business community’s need for assistance is reflected in the amount of traffic the SBA experiences each day.

“Calls to the SBA have increased from 15 to 50 each day.”

“These are tough times and these people are out to help you,” she said.

Taylor already knew of many of SBA’s offerings, but was more than happy to learn from Porzio at the presentation that she can refinance under the new interest rate, which is now nearly three points less than her current rate.

“It could save us $500 a month,” Taylor said. “That’s huge.”