WARREN, RI – Today, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, joined U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Deputy Administrator Marie C. Johns, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and U.S. Representative David Cicilline for a tour of AVTECH Software, Inc.’s worldwide headquarters in Warren to get a firsthand look at their manufacturing and exporting business. 

AVTECH has received several federal SBA guaranteed loans and has benefited from other SBA programs and resources to become a successful small business exporter, including a $200,000 SBA guaranteed Export Express loan to help develop and expand AVTECH’s export activities.

“We need to help ensure entrepreneurs who can create jobs have access to small-business financing to help improve our communities and our economy.  AVTECH is a great example of how small businesses can take advantage of SBA lending programs to expand and hire more workers and we need to make sure more businesses in Rhode Island are taking advantage of these opportunities,” said Reed, who supported the Small Business Jobs Act, which made the Export Express pilot program permanent.

According to the National Alliance for Jobs and Innovation, there are 11.7 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S.  In Rhode Island, there are 40,700 manufacturing employees and since 2001 manufacturing jobs have declined by 43.4 percent.

“Protecting jobs here at home through smart targeted investment is a key component to jumpstarting our local economy,” continued Reed.  “I congratulate AVTECH and wish them future success.”

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Reed helped increase SBA funding in 2013 by about $130.9 million to $1.049 billion.  In addition, Reed supported the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, which provided the SBA an additional $804 million to address damages caused by Hurricane Sandy.  According to the latest statistics from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA), Rhode Island has received over $14.9 million in federal funding to repair storm damage as a result of Sandy, including $631,400 in low interest, disaster recovery loans to homeowners by SBA.

In addition to making the Export Express program permanent, the Small Business Jobs Act, which Reed supported, also established the State Trade Export Promotion Grant, which has provided Rhode Island and the Chafee Center at Bryant University with $414,474 to support small businesses tapping into overseas markets. 

Owned by Michael Sigourney, AVTECH is the premier worldwide manufacturer of environment monitoring equipment specifically designed to monitor today's advanced computer rooms and data centers, and exports its products to 177 countries around the world.  Their Room Alert and TemPageR products are used to monitor environmental conditions in many of the world's most secure data centers and are installed in almost every branch of the U.S. government. 

AVTECH has manufacturing facilities in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.