I had the pleasure of connecting up after many years with a former leader of the Small Business Administration in Minnesota, Mel Anerud, who shared a very interesting story about President Carter’s footprint in supporting ALANA business development in Minnesota. Mel was Deputy District Director of the SBA in the late 1990s when I first met him- he and District Director Ed Daum had invited me to chair the District Advisory Council of the SBA where among other things we signed an MOU to increase lending in the ALANA communities.
Mel shared that President Carter told the SBA to go out into the community and become advocates and do things to improve access to opportunity for the ALANA communities. This call to action led Mel to write the language for what became Minnesota’s small and targeted/disadvantaged business legislation. The idea behind this legislation was to leverage the states multibillion dollar annual spending to grow small and ALANA businesses. He also worked on the rules that implemented the landmark legislation. I did a search of state statutes and found this record of a bill changing some language to a 1978 bill (see below).
Thank you Mel Anerud for heeding the call to be an advocate for change and setting in motion a tool to grow ALANA businesses through the massive spending of the Minnesota’s various government agencies. As I can see Mel is still “advocating” and inspiring – he served as one of the “electors” in the presidential election in 2016 and convenes conversations on important topics at Pilgrim House. Last week he shared stories of ALANA entrepreneurs he worked with over the years who helped build Minnesota.
As we also celebrate the life and work of President Jimmy Carter, let us also thank him for his inspirational legacy here in Minnesota. This is one of Minnesota’s most unutilized tool to grow small and ALANA businesses according to historical and the latest data given it was launched in the late 1970s.
