If success in business is measured by the number of people helped, Ken Clark is one of the most successful men in San Diego. For 15 years, Clark has worked as the small business services coordinator at the Southwestern College Small Business Development & International Trade Center. The SBDITC provides management, operations and financial assistance to 1,200 clients a year.

Clark goes way beyond this job description. He holds seminars, develops innovative programs promoting better access to capital assistance, helps clients clean up credit, and guides them through the loan process. That’s why the SBA-San Diego District has named Clark its Financial Services Advocate of the Year (in 1998, he was selected the Minority Business Advocate).

“Ken and his team are ‘dream weavers,’ taking a client from idea to grand opening,” says Michael McCraw, president and CEO of Southern California Small Business Development Corp. “They provide training, market research services, credit repair and analysis, individual consultations and, ultimately, loan packages. Generally, Ken’s clients lack business sophistication and need loans of less than $100,000, so they are deemed a nuisance to the lending professionals. The SBDITC evens the playing field by collecting, organizing and formatting loan requests, which makes these smaller deals more attractive to the lender. These are the people and businesses these programs were intended to help.”

Travis Levy, director of lending for Acción San Diego, says, “Through the work of SBDITC, hundreds of thousands of dollars in SBA and bank financing have been directed to small business owners who otherwise would have been shut out of these funding opportunities.”

Clark’s clients offer glowing praise. “Ken and his staff make pipe dreams a reality,” says Judy Rountree, who owns a Popeyes Chicken & Biscuit franchise in Oceanside and describes herself as “a single black woman of 61 years with moderate education.”

Clark works tirelessly for his clients. “Outside of Ken’s everyday work duties, he is also ‘feet on the street,’ looking to promote much needed funding for programs and innovative services that will strengthen the economic viability of San Diego communities,” says Erica L. Opstad, vice president of community development for US Bank in San Diego. “Ken’s work at SBDITC, and as a small business advocate in the community, is an outstanding example of the type of individual that both bankers and small business people can rely on to make things happen.”

With 23 years’ experience as a business adviser and entrepreneur, Clark also has held positions with the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce and San Diego City Schools. He participates on a number of boards, commissions and advisory committees that provide business development and economic development opportunities. But his greatest legacy is with those he has helped to make business dreams a reality.

“Ken’s work continues to have a major impact on the entrepreneurs he serves in creative ways that go beyond the resources normally expected for an organization of this type,” says E. Mark Jahn, SBA counselor and consultant. “Ken is and has been a serious overachiever when it comes to helping people better themselves through virtually every conceivable economic pursuit.”