Our small businessmen and women -- in many instances, our small business families -- play such a fundamental role in local job creation and preservation, to say nothing of economic opportunity and hope here at home and, collectively, across the state and nation. The SBA notes that over the past 20 years small businesses have been responsible for creating two out of every three net new jobs nationally. More than one-half of all of America’s working men and women, according to federal statistics, own or are employed by a small business.