Federal SBA Administrator to Address UMaine Graduates May 9
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO –Karen Gordon Mills of Brunswick, Me., President Barack Obama’s choice to serve as Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, will be the University of Maine commencement speaker on Saturday, May 9. The U.S. Senate confirmed Mills’ nomination earlier this month.
As Administrator of the SBA, Mills is in charge of a federal agency with more than 2,000 full-time employees. SBA takes a leading role in helping small business owners and entrepreneurs as they work to gain financing, secure technical assistance and training, and pursue federal contacts. At SBA Mills is leading an agency that President Obama has said he feels will play a critical role in the nation’s economic recovery.
“We are honored and delighted that Karen Gordon Mills has accepted our invitation to address the UMaine Class of 2009,” says UMaine President Robert Kennedy. “She has vast experience as a business and community leader, giving her unique and valuable perspectives to share with our graduates as they move into a new stage of their lives. Her leadership role in the federal government relates specifically to business development and job creation, issues that will have a tremendous impact on our graduates as they begin or resume professional careers.”
Over the past decade, it is estimated that small businesses have created 60-80 percent of the net new jobs across the U.S. and that those businesses hire more than 40 percent of high tech workers across the country.
Mills has an economics degree from Harvard and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, she formerly served as vice chair of the Harvard Overseers.
She has had a 25-year career as an entrepreneur, working in investing and as a leader in companies involved in consumer products, food, distribution, textile and industrial components. Most recently, she was president of MMP Group. In the late 1990s, she was co-founder and managing director of Solera Capital, a firm that focused on investing in small businesses owned by women. Mills also has extensive experience in the international business world, having worked in Europe and the U.S. for the management consulting firm McKinsey and Co. and in project management for General Foods.
Her contributions in Maine have also been significant. In 2007, Gov. John Baldacci appointed Mills to serve as chair of the state’s Council on Competitiveness and the Economy. She has also maintained close connections with UMaine and led the statewide effort that resulted in voter approval of two R&D-related bond referenda in November 2007.
UMaine holds two commencement ceremonies inside Alfond Arena, and Mills will speak at both. The 10 a.m. ceremony is for students graduating from UMaine’s College of Business, Public Policy and Health; College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and Division of Lifelong Learning. A 2:30 p.m. ceremony is for those graduating from the College of Education and Human Development; the College of Engineering; and the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture.