Published: May 10, 2008 06:34 pm            

Administration honors small businesses at celebration

TERRE HAUTE — Dan Fehrenbach, president and CEO of Bank of Indiana, has won the 2008 Small Business Administration’s Financial Services Champion of the Year award for Indiana.

Mark and Angela Timm, founders of Cottage Garden Inc. have won the 2008 state SBA Small Business Persons of the Year award.

The Indiana SBA district recognized the accomplishments and contributions of these businesses at the Indiana Small Business Week 2008 Celebration on May 1 at the Ritz Charles in Carmel. Both businesses have used the services of the West-Central Indiana Small Business Development Center, housed in Indiana State University’s College of Business.

Fehrenbach has 36 years of banking experience and is recognized for his years of small-business advocacy, small-business support and expertise in government guaranteed lending. Aside from extensive volunteer work with the Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corp., he involves himself in local community issues that affect business development in Indiana’s rural municipalities. One example would be the need for water and sewage systems to support development in small towns such as Dana.

“Local lenders need to be involved in helping their communities grow their own businesses. We do a lot with small businesses and the advantage to the small businesses is that they deal with people who make the decisions,” Fehrenbach said.

The Timms started Cottage Garden as an in-home business in September 1996. It has since grown to a staff of 35 employees and for the past two years the Bainbridge business has been recognized as America’s leading supplier of music boxes, with showrooms in seven states and exports to many European countries.

This success was anything but a foregone conclusion when, soon after Sept. 11, 2001, the Timms experienced an economic downturn of their business and their home was destroyed by a tornado. But the Timms persevered and Cottage Garden had more than $8 million in sales in 2007, through representatives covering nearly the entire nation and catalogue sales.

“We sought the services of the West Central Indiana SBDC to help determine best allocation of our assets for restructuring debt financing and offering optimal operational cash flow. We needed a banking referral that would appreciate our business and understand our needs and business aspirations as compared to being “just a number,” said Mark Timm.

Based on the counseling received from the West Central ISBDC and effective referral, in 2007, Cottage Garden secured its first SBA loan of $1.3 million with the Bank of Indiana and term loan of $842,775 with Farm Credit, which was critical to securing its growth strategy for 2008.

In addition to the state award, the Timms were runners-up for the national SBA award in the same category.

Bank of Indiana has its headquarters in Dana, with branches in North Judson, Lafayette, and Hamlet. Bank of Indiana also has loan production offices in Terre Haute and Indianapolis. Access www.bankofindiana.com.

        

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