Dierdre A. Badeaux
June 14, 2011Thursday, June 16
June 16, 2011
Small businesses within 60 miles of the Gulf Coast and Louisiana marshes that can document a 5 percent loss of sales or employment following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon incident may be eligible of up to $30,000 in grant funding to expand selected services.
The Gulf Oil Spill Disaster Adjustment Assistance Center (GOSDAA), based in Gray, is assisting more than 100 companies in the application process, which will culminate when the money funnels down and individual companies are matched with consultants.
Eligible firms must match the grant with cash, which makes the maximum budget $60,000.
“In this area, we probably have already spoken to at least 150 [small businesses],” said Carolyn Smith, one of GOSDAA’s two project managers. “A lot of that has been phone calls that came in initially, but we’ve been on-site at many facilities throughout the area.”
In order to be eligible for assistance, firms must be considered a small business by the Small Business Administration standards, must have been operating since Jan. 1, 2008, must provide documentation that shows the firm suffered losses of at least 5 percent from April to December 2010 when compared to the previous year and must be located within proximity of the oil-affected coastline and marshes.
Businesses must be located within 60 miles of GOSDAA’s designated coastline, which extends from the Texas-Mexico border through New Orleans. Because the Louisiana marshes were impacted, the Tri-parish designation begins north of Thibodaux.
Non-profit organizations, bars and casinos are not eligible for assistance.
The program was developed to offer assistance in marketing and expanding a business’s operations, including website development, new software and its implementation, trade show booths and materials, sales and communication training, product engineering, research and development and market research.
“We are very interested in helping companies that are in the seafood processing business, oil and gas that obviously have been affected by the moratorium,” said Ruperto Chavarri, the program’s second project manager. “They don’t need to justify that it was the oil spill.”
GOSDAA can help seafood-processing companies, but fishermen would have trouble meeting the grant’s requirements, Chavarri said.
“Fishermen, probably, are not going to qualify for the program, because what they need is money, and they don’t have the money to put on the program,” he said. “Most of them, they are interested in buying equipment, boats or repairing, and they can’t use the grant for that. … It’s not really designed for fishermen.”
The program is expected to last for three years at $1 million. The money has already been dedicated to the University of Texas at San Antonio, which applied for the grant, and the university has a review board that will approve allocation to businesses.
GOSDAA works with a business to determine a business plan, and then to select which consultant best fits an individual company’s needs. Chavarri and Smith said they’ve seen a pattern among interested businesses.
“I think the desire is they want to grow,” Smith said. “They are very committed to this region. They have expertise. They’ve been meeting their payroll for years, but since Katrina, it seems there has been one disaster after another in trying to recover. I think, for some, there is some fear there. Are they going to make it?”
Together, Chavarri and Smith are working with companies throughout the target region, which is the 60-mile stretch inland in Texas and Louisiana.
Chavarri, 65 years old, emigrated from Spain 32 years ago and has extensive experience in dealing with international trade, and he worked with the Small Business Development Center at the University of New Orleans. Smith, a 56-year-old Tennessee native, has worked closely with manufacturers for the Department of Commerce.
Interested parties can reach GOSDAA at (985) 851-2900, extension 4010, or drop by the office, which is located in a building directly behind South Central Planning and Development in Gray.
The Gulf Oil Spill Disaster Adjustment Assistance Program s offering up to $30,000 in federal grant money, which must be matched, to small businesses south of the solid line who suffered losses of 5 percent from April to December 2010 compared to the same period in 2009. COURTESY ILLUSTRATION
