Remarks at the National Small Business Person of the Year Presentation Ceremony for Gary L. McDaniel

THE PRESIDENT. To Vernon Weaver, who manages very effectively the Small Business Administration, and to the distinguished honorees here this afternoon, to their wives or husbands, and to the guests who've come to represent the small business community, I want to say welcome.

I guess if there's one group in the Nation with whom I feel most closely associated because of my past experience, my trials and tribulations and worries and problems, it would be with the small business community of the Nation.

This is the third year that I have participated in the award for the outstanding small business person of our Nation. It's always been an exciting experience for me and one that brings honor to the person who's been chosen, and also to the small business community, to the White House, and, I think, to the entire country.

Two-thirds of all the new jobs in our country originate among small businesses—I think a remarkable tribute to the spirit and the innovation and the dynamic commitment to the free enterprise system exhibited by you and those in almost all the States, in Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands that are represented here.

This is a time, I think, for very careful assessment of what will happen in the future with the small businesses of our Nation. I brought here an almost abhorrence or horror of government intrusion and unjust, unnecessary paperwork, reports, and application forms, government inspectors, regulations. And since I've been in this office, I've tried as best I could to do something about it, all the way from HEW, which has eliminated more than 300 pages of fine print, regulations that applied to small businesses, down to OSHA, of which you may have heard- [laughter] —which eliminated a thousand regulations in 1 day. We've been pleased with the progress made.

And I have introduced this year into the Congress for their consideration a bill to deal in a more generic or broad-based sense to eliminate unnecessary regulations that are established in our Government by law.

There's a limit, as you know, to what can be done through administrative action. My business in the past was peanuts. I sold seed, I planted, harvested, cured, shelled, sold, and ate— [laughter] —peanuts. And it's almost inconceivable that to determine through the Food and Drug Administration what percentage of peanuts ought to be present in peanut butter would take 12 years of hearings, and the report includes 100,000 pages of government documents. This is an actual fact. And it's such a ridiculous situation in government that it's indeed almost unbelievable.

One of the first things that I discussed with the congressional leaders involved, and also with Vernon Weaver when he came here to help me, was to have a small business conference at the White House. This is a rare occasion in my life, and indeed it's a rare occasion in the life of the White House, to have a carefully prepared, designated White House Conference. But I wanted it to be done.

We've already had 57 regional hearings around the Nation, and many more are scheduled. We've had more than 20,000 people who attended those hearings already. They've come to listen to one another, to compare notes, to give suggestions, and to give criticisms about how the small business community, individual businesses, could be made stronger, more effectively, how competition could be enhanced, how customers could be served better, how products could be evolved and produced and distributed faster, and how our free enterprise system could work in a more enhanced way.

Next January, 1980, we'll collect all of those data and suggestions and criticisms, comments, and come together here at the White House for a very in-depth analysis of the strengths and the weaknesses and the potential of the small businesses of our Nation.

I know that you're already involved in it—you couldn't be the outstanding small business person of your State if you were not—not just selfishly involved in a particular local business but involved in the free enterprise system and its improvement in general. And I hope all of you will participate in this preparation in a more aggressive way even when you go home than you have in the past.

Today, the purpose of this meeting is to recognize the outstanding small business people of our country, and particularly the outstanding small business person of the Nation. This is intense competition, and it takes a long and laborious analysis to determine who is the best among a lot of superior and outstanding people.

I'm very glad that we have a number of minority business leaders represented here, a number of businesswomen represented here. And I hope that this trend can continue, because these choices are not made just to honor a woman or just to honor someone who can speak Spanish or who happens to be black. The competition is among all. And I think the fairness of it has now been demonstrated most vividly this year than ever before.

Well, I'm very pleased to do this, and I'd like to ask Vernon to come forward now with the award and Gary McDaniel from Kansas to come, and I guess I'll participate in the delivery of the award.

This is Gary McDaniel and his senior partner, Virginia, who 10 years ago invested $23,000 of their own money into a new business to produce air filters. They also got a $25,000 loan from the Small Business Administration. And since that time, their sales volume has been, since that first year, has multiplied more than a hundred times. And now this originally tiny, new flower on the free enterprise garden of the United States has become a flourishing garden, and their air filters have not only brought profit and now fame— [laughter] —to the McDaniels but has also helped us to have a cleaner environment and Americans to have a better life.

And I want to congratulate Gary on this superb achievement and to read the award. "The United States of America, Small Business Administration, presents the National First Place Small Business Person of the Year Award to Gary L. McDaniel, Kansas City, Kansas, for exemplifying the imagination, initiative, independence, and integrity by which the American small business person makes a vital contribution to the Nation, to the economy, and to the free enterprise system, Washington, D.C., May 16, 1979." Signed, Vernon Weaver.

I would like to say they are from Sabetha, Kansas, and not Kansas City. How far are you from Kansas City?

MR. McDANIEL. A hundred miles.

THE PRESIDENT. A hundred miles from Kansas City. Well, that's—congratulations to you.

MR. McDANIEL. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

I really don't know what to say. I am quite honored. And I think the first thing I'd like to say is the honor has my name on it only, but it really should include Virginia's, because she works in the business as many hours as we do, and has from the day it started.

I wish to thank the National Advisory Council for selecting us. I wish to thank the SBA for the confidence they had in us in the beginning in providing us with the operating capital we needed to get started. As one person asked me one time, "Why do you keep going back to the SBA?" Well, if you find a well with good water, don't hesitate to go back and drink it. [Laughter]

We've gone to the SBA four times for loans to expand our business. The only other thing I can say is thank you, and we're very flattered and honored.

MR. WEAVER. I'll just say a few words, because I never keep the President waiting.

I don't think those of you who paid your own way to come here today realize what it means to the agency, to me, its top officers. Running an agency like the SBA has its bad moments, and we don't always get good press. We're not always saluted; we're criticized. But during this week, when we have 50 of you come here and demonstrate your success, we meet your families, we know how you've prospered, it makes it all worthwhile for us.

And we are, all of us, from me down to the last SBA employee in Washington and all over the country, are gratified, and our faith is rekindled by having the chance to associate with all of you for a few days in Washington.

We thank you very much.