At the Small Business Week Celebration held in May, 2018, First District Development Company (FDDC) was awarded the 2017 Rural Lender Award by the South Dakota Small Business Administration due to the percent of SBA loans made in rural areas in South Dakota. FDDC was also recognized with the 2017 Leadership Circle Award for the amount of SBA financing secured on behalf of small businesses in 2017. (Pictured left: John Brown II, SD SBA District Director; Amy Waite, Katie DeBoer, Andrea Tesch, and Paula Hulscher, all of FDDC.)
At the same time, Paula Hulscher, Executive Vice President of FDDC, (pictured right), accepted the award as the 2018 Financial Services Advocate of the Year. Hulscher has worked with SBA and other lending programs for over 23 years, supporting small businesses to obtain financing. Through marketing and a continual customer service improvement process, Hulscher and her team have grown their SBA 504 portfolio by over 500 percent since she began with FDDC.