Background On President Obama's Event To Announce New Small Business Lending Initiatives

President Obama will visit Metropolitan Archives, a family-owned small business that recently expanded with an SBA loan, where he will announce a package of initiatives that will increase credit to small businesses.

The audience of approximately 100 will be composed of Metropolitan Archives employees and small business owners from the greater DC area. There will also be local political leaders and Members of Congress in attendance.

Stage participants:

• Joe Incarnato, co-owner of Metropolitan Archives, will introduce the President to stage.
• Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner, SBA Administrator Karen Mills, and Metropolitan Archives co-owner Doug Peters will also be onstage.

Background on Metropolitan Archives:
Two friends that have known each other since middle school, wrestled together on the high school varsity team, attended the University of Maryland and joined the same fraternity are now business partners in Metropolitan Archives, a small family operated business that stores and delivers paper files to some of the largest firms in the world. 

For over two decades, Joe Incarnato and Doug Peters have honed the craft of providing premium records management services at a reasonable price.  Joe started the company five years ago and Doug joined soon thereafter and together they have taken the company from an empty warehouse to occupying approximately 100,000 square feet with over 175 customers in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Metropolitan Archives is truly a family run business that at one time has employed Joe’s wife Susan, his mom, his sister and four of Doug’s six children.

In February of this year, Joe and Doug were able to purchase the building that stores the records with an SBA 504 loan.  This loan lowered the required amount of down payment to only 10% and set the interest rate for 20 years.  This has allowed Metropolitan to replace old air-conditioning units and light fixtures saving over 20% in energy expenses. The building is also in an enterprise zone allowing for state tax credits for newly hired employees and property tax reductions.  It is located within a mile of the Cheverly Metro allowing employees to take public transportation to work. Metropolitan Archives’ expansion helped them retain 10 jobs, and will create ten new ones in the months ahead. Business is going so well that they’re already hoping to expand again, but they need another loan to make it happen. 

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