Catawba Corporations believes providing our staff and interns with the tools they need to succeed is vital to our growth as a company and growing our staff from within. We provide many educational opportunities throughout the year to motivated individuals seeking to broaden their knowledge. Below is a recent experience from our intern, Blake Beck, on attending the SBA Virtual Conference:
“The 2021 Virtual Day Conference was vastly different than the normal conference due to Covid-19. There were many presentations going on throughout the day and many booths to visit. Most booths were left to speak for themselves, while very few had people monitoring them to answer questions. This made it difficult to meet with other companies and agencies. The conference provided me with more information about each company in attendance. The first conference I attended was about the new regulations. The one-year extension year for the SBA 8(a) program was discussed. The main takeaway from this meeting is that the one-year extension will be added on to the end of your program term. This means it will add one extra year to the transitional phase. It should also be noted that the SBA will assume you will take the extra year, meaning a company does not need to request it. The last conference I planned to attend was a Native conference to find opportunities, however, it was cancelled at the start of the day. Throughout the day, our booth received a lot of attention from clients and competitors.”