SBA Post goes to Tucsonan Ana Ma

By Dan Sullivan
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

After seeing a lot of her friends’ businesses go under, Tucsonan Ana M. Ma hopes to use her new post at the U.S. Small Business Administration to help reverse the trend.

The former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Tuc­son Democrat, will now serve as chief of staff in Washington, D.C., to Karen G. Mills, who was confirmed as the SBA’s ad­ministrator on April 3. “I’m excited to get this once­in- a-lifetime opportunity,” Ma said. “But I’m going to miss Tucson, my family, the food and all the folks that live there.” She’s worked in Washington off and on for years but expects to get back home less often now. “We’re running the mid­night oil,” she said.

The SBA is a federal agency that helps start and build busi­nesses with a network of 68 field offices and cooperation with private and public organi­zations.

Ma said she will use the knowledge she gained coming from a long line of entrepre­neurs. Her parents emigrated from China to Mexico and then to the United States. “It takes a lot of hard work and dedi­cation,” she said.
“That sums it up.

They saved every penny. They worked day and night. My dad — their business (Chinese restaurants) was their life. And their family.”

Ma was the first in her family to graduate from college, earn­ing a bachelor’s degree in polit­ical science in 1991 from the University of Arizona. She is trilingual, speaking English, Spanish and conversational Chinese-Cantonese.

She was deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Labor Depart­ment during the Clin­ton administration, and she was a cam­paign manager for Grijalva’s congres­sional campaign. She also has held many Democratic Party posts, including Western states politi­cal director for the Democratic National Committee.

In her new job, she will man­age the day-to-day operations of the agency and help set poli­cy, among other duties.

She said her top goal is to make sure that businesses that need help from the SBA get it.

When she thinks of friends whose small businesses have sunk during this recession, two in particular come to mind in Tucson, she said. Edmund Marquez’s Suzuki dealership closed in December, and Don Luria and Donna Nordin’s in­fluential Terra Cotta restaurant closed in January.

“We hope that President Obama’s policies are going to be a shining light for small busi­nesses,” Ma said, adding that the SBA hopes to be more accessi­ble to entrepreneurs, transpar­ent to the public, and collabora­tive with other federal agencies.

It’s reaching out to as many lenders as possible, she added. Will lending ease up? “I’m crossing my fingers,” Ma said.

Contact NASA Space Grant intern Dan Sullivan at 573-4237 or dsulliva@azstarnet.com.
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Ana M. Ma
led staff of Rep. Raúl Grijalva.