Jerry Chautin

Kiki Karpus invests in start-ups and emerging businesses -- well, sort of. Instead of choosing the companies based upon the likelihood of their success, Karpus' investment is not for financial compensation. Rather, she and other young professionals are part of a growing...

How do you get three of the Obama administration's top appointed officials to speak at a day-long seminar? The answer is to tell them it is about job creation, small business and unlocking the availability of credit for businesses to form and expand -- all hot election year topics.

As...

Once upon a time, the U.S. Small Business Administration made direct loans to socially and economically disadvantaged small-business people. The SBA's direct lending programs also targeted disabled veterans and others that politicians said deserved preferential treatment.

What's more, the agency required applicants to get turned down...

Lenders are concerned that President Barack Obama's proposed 2013 budget and the political scuffling in Congress may leave the U.S. Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture with inadequate loan-guarantee authority to satisfy...

Rental apartments are back in demand, financing for hotels and motels is loosening up a bit and investors are stepping off the sidelines with wads of cash to do deals. In order hone their skills, an estimated 20,000 mortgage bankers, commercial real estate investors, banks and a potpourri of income-producing...

And the winner is -- Cornell University by a nose. But Stanford University was not far behind after bolting out of the gates along with seven others universities competing for the same prize. The prize is a 99-year lease and monetary incentives from New York City...

Suppose you are sitting in your backyard on a lazy summer afternoon watching baseball. You open a cold beer, press a button and a section of the wall of your house spins around turning your backyard into an amphitheater with a large-screen TV. In fact, the entire entertainment module that...

Eighty-three Huffington Post readers responded and took me to task about "It's Homebuilding Stupid," an article that I wrote in September. I said that our economic recovery would be rocky until the construction and homebuilding industries substantially improve. Accordingly the government should stimulate those two sectors.

But...

Line of Credit (LOC) financing is more difficult for small-business owners to get than term loans. Small community banks often lack the expertise and staff to service them and large banks that make LOCs, eliminate all but their most creditworthy...

"Our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays," President Barack Obama said on Friday. But what he did not tell us is whether they will find jobs or be added to the millions of unemployed, underemployed or part-timers seeking full-time jobs.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, "military and civilian purchases" total more than $425 billion a year of federal government spending. Of that amount, Congress mandates that 23 percent be set aside for small businesses. SBA is charged with overseeing this "goaling" program and does...

In Thursday's address to Congress, I want President Barack Obama to emphasize that fixing the home-building and construction industries is necessary to jump-start our lame economy. That is because, in my recollection, home building and construction have led us out of every recession since the 1960s, when I financed land...

The U.S. Small Business Administration's inspector general has berated Banco Popular about its alleged indifference to the agency's rules and standard operating procedures. According to its July 13 audit report, "Banco Popular did not adequately assess each borrower's repayment ability when originating Huntington Learning...

Boyd Wright spends lots of time at home in Grand Forks, North Dakota. So much so that the U.S. Small Business Administration named him the 2010 "National Home-Based Business Champion of the Year" during the Small Business Week ceremony in Washington, D.C. last year.

Wright's success is...

Quick response codes have the potential to boost your sales, enhance your brand and turn your plain vanilla print advertisement into an interactive, multi-media marketing machine. "QR, which stands for quick response, is a free format that businesses can use to embed their contact information, website addresses,

"Profiteers are able to identify vulnerable homeowners by paying real estate agents for referrals," Coop wrote in Secondary Marketing Executive Magazine. Then the profiteer "works to persuade the homeowner that a short sale is the best solution."

Coop is president of Interthinx, a company...

During the real estate boom, commercial real estate borrowers opted for three and five-year balloon mortgages rather than safer long-term loans. Instead of choosing 10-year, 20-year or even longer terms, they decided to get a lower interest rate and hike their leverage.

But in hindsight they made the wrong...

Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are consistently plagued by higher unemployment rates than the civilian community. Ted Daywalt, a retired Navy Captain (O-6), and chief executive officer of VetJobs.com, explains why the dichotomy exists.

"Many human resource managers and...

Veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome was my HuffPost topic on February 19. My readers will recall that it spoke to non-drug solutions to mitigate the symptoms.

Many of these veterans are also having a tough time finding jobs. To help, Mark Lyden, a national employment recruiter and...

Passion and a great idea are not enough to start a business. In my last two columns, I wrote that you must demonstrate enough predictable cash flow and pledge substantial collateral. Additionally, small-business lenders require a considerable cash infusion of your own money. That is the...