August 5, 2002

People's Beverly Hoppie Featured At SBA's Northeast Women's Entrepreneurship Conference

BRIDGEPORT, CONN.
Beverly A. Hoppie, Community Development officer at People's Bank, will speak about how women entrepreneurs can work with their banks to obtain access to much-needed capital at a Small Business Administration (SBA) conference Thursday in New Britain.

"Entrepreneurs who also happen to be women sometimes can face additional challenges," said Hoppie. "They confront all the normal ups and downs of entrepreneurship, but they also lack the network and role models that can help them resolve some of their issues. The proper relationship with a banker, can be a great boon to an entrepreneur because the banker is the one participant in the financial markets who is likely to be able to provide tailored solutions to meet changing financial needs."

"A banker can help an entrepreneur not only in obtaining bank loans, but in reaching out to public organizations like the SBA or to public-private partnerships such as the Connecticut Economic Development Fund (CEDF)," Hoppie noted. "Bankers also can introduce you to means of access to the capital markets. At People's Bank, we also look at a customer's entire financial picture, so we can help a successful entrepreneur with life issues like investment management through our investment or asset management subsidiaries and estate planning or business succession issues through our Trust and Investment Management group."

The U.S. Small Business Administration, U.S. Department of Labor and the Public Forum Institute are sponsoring the conference. It follows a national conference held in Washington, D.C. last spring where 1,200 business and community leaders from across the country met to discuss issues facing women entrepreneurs today. Thursday's conference features programs and workshops focusing on access to capital, finding new markets, rising health insurance costs, making sense of the tax code, and achieving financial security. Women today own nearly 40 percent of all U.S. businesses, employ more than 27 million workers, and generate $3 trillion in revenues.

Thursday's conference, "Women Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century," is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with early registration beginning at 7:45 a.m., at Central Connecticut State University's Welte Hall in New Britain. For more information, or to register, please visit www.women-21.com.

People's (peoples.com) is a diversified financial services company providing commercial, consumer, insurance and investment services. Founded in 1842, it is the largest state-chartered bank in Connecticut with managed assets of $14 billion, 150 branches and more than 230 ATMs. People's is a leader in consumer and commercial banking, residential lending, insurance sales, supermarket banking and is the nation's 15th-largest issuer of MasterCard and Visa credit cards. People's subsidiaries offer brokerage services, asset management, equipment financing and leasing, and insurance services.