Jim Ely is president of Small Business Development Corporation of Orange County, effective July 5, 2023.
Jim has served the corporation as a loan committee participant and loan committee chairman since 2007. As chairman of the loan committee, he has led the charge in the committee’s reviews of state loan guarantee requests from participating institutions to determine the eligibility and creditworthiness of their small business clients.
Jim has been active with government-guaranteed lending since 1984 as a managing member of Sbapro.com LLC, a lender service provider focused on the origination of Small Business Administration 7(a) credit transactions/loans for institutional lenders participating in the SBA’s loan guarantee programs. As a result of his familiarity with SBA lending and experience with the state of California Small Business Loan Guarantee Program, he brings together under SBDC-OC’s umbrella all bank and borrower government-guaranteed lending needs.
Jim is a business economics alumnus of UCLA and also serves on the board of directors for Orange County’s California International Bank as its vice chairman and on its directors’ loan committee.
Since 2004, Jim has been the lead instructor for the SBA Application Processing class offered by the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders. In 2015 he was recognized by the US Small Business Administration as their Financial Services Champion of the Year. In the meantime, while helping small businesses ride the waves of success, Jim rides waves of his own with morning surfing sessions each day in Newport Beach.
