Special Delivery : First Lady Brings Devon Industries Part of $9 Million in Quake Aid
After an unprecedented week in Washington of being grilled, poked, prodded and scrutinized more than an Arkansas chicken, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton came to ChatsworthWednesday for a bit of relief--earthquake relief, that is.
Clinton presented Devon Industries Inc. with the first installment of a $9.1-million Small Business Administration loan, the largest disaster loan in U. S. history.
She gave a speech supporting the travails of San Fernando Valley residents and basked in the thanks of Mayor Richard Riordan, U. S. Reps. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) and Howard Berman (D-Panorama City), Devon officials and the 398 employees whose jobs the loan will help preserve.
Before the grant to Devon, a medical supplies manufacturer, the SBA limited businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees to maximum loans of $1.5 million. But Devon, which suffered more than $10 million in damage from the Jan. 17 quake, lobbied the SBA, in cooperation with the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., to offer bigger loans to smaller businesses.
As a result, SBA Administrator Erskine Bowles agreed to qualify businesses with 250 or more employees as “a major source of employment,” making them eligible for the larger loans.
“Without this SBA help, there is very little reason to believe that Devon could remain here, reopen, re-employ people and get back to business,” Clinton told the applauding dignitaries, who were seated on a parking lot that had been part of the main plant before it was damaged in the quake. “They would have had to perhaps move production to their plants elsewhere, which would have been a devastating loss to this area.”
And in fine ribbon-cutting tradition, Clinton, who was in town for former President Richard Nixon’s funeral, also toured the recovered parts of the Devon plant and briefly worked on an assembly line. As workers and photographers looked on, she soon discovered the hazards of sending needle counters through a sealing machine.
“Oh, my gosh!” she said as she pressed the start button and fumbled with the red rectangular boxes, trying to stuff them into their proper places on the conveyor belt. “You’ve got to be fast!”
Carlos Moreno, who normally does the job, laughed as he stepped in for the First Lady and showed her his technique.
In the parking lot, before Clinton could thank supporters and her fellow speakers for their encouraging words about her health care proposals, they all thanked her.
Unlike a visit to Los Angeles in January, when she was criticized for not making it to this side of the hill, it was the Valley officials who began the thank-yous.
“(The Clinton Administration) came, they helped and we are here to see the results of that help,” Riordan said. “Mrs. Clinton, the $1.9 million is concrete proof that flexibility combined with compassion can make government a friend to the people and businesses in need.”
Added Dan Sandel, Devon’s owner: “The immediate response from the so-called bureaucrats was so wonderful that the word bureaucrat-- which has a cynical connotation--should be replaced with the term ‘Angel of Mercy.’ ”
Clinton, who took no questions from the press, smiled, nodding her head throughout the speeches as a way of acknowledging the praise.
Not the least of those thankful was Alejandro Cordero, who stood in the back with scores of other factory workers and craned his neck over the crowd to see Clinton.
Cordero came to America from Guatemala City six years ago and has worked at the Chatsworth plant as a receiving clerk for about a year and a half, he said.
His job and the benefits are good, he said, though he once feared the earthquake might end all that.
“I’m very proud to see her and I thank her for everything she has done,” Cordero said. “This loan probably saved my job and my family’s future--my dreams.”
