SANTA ANA, Calif. – Effective July 5, the top leadership role at Small Business Development Corporation of Orange County shifted gears for the first time in 22 years with the titles of president and chief executive officer split between two individuals.

Corporation co-founder Michael A. Ocasio until this month held both roles. He will now continue as chief executive officer while his longtime colleague and the organization’s loan committee chairman Jim Ely will fill the presidency. Ocasio announced the appointment to the corporation’s board members on July 5 when the new presidency took effect.

“The genesis of bifurcating the president and chief executive officer roles is a strategy I’ve reviewed and contemplated over the past year,” he said in his message, noting his consultation with board members, external consultants and board chair Thanh Pham. “[These steps] allowed me to make a conscious choice of what would benefit the agency and its legacy moving forward, particularly with respect to management succession.” Other considerations included future opportunities for the organization and his eventual retirement plans, said Ocasio.

As chief executive officer, Ocasio will continue to lead the organization’s long-term vision and strategy development under purview of the board of directors. In his new position, Ely will report to Ocasio as he directs the organization’s daily operations in fulfillment of its mission and strategies. His responsibilities will include overseeing the expansion of direct lending platforms and systems, state loan guarantee program production, training and development, and implementation of enterprise credit risk policies and strategies to support the agency’s statewide footprint, growth, and expansion.

Since 1984, Ely has been a managing member of Sbapro.com LLC., a lender service provider focused on the origination of U.S. Small Business Administration 7(a) credit transactions and loans for institutional lenders participating in the SBA’s loan guarantee programs. He has also been active with Small Business Development Corporation of Orange County since 2007 as a loan committee participant and loan committee chairman.

As a result of his familiarity with both U.S. SBA lending and experience with the state of California Small Business Loan Guarantee Program provided through SBDC-OC, the corporation can meet a broad spectrum of bank and borrower government guaranteed lending needs.

Ely’s two primary goals going forward are to ensure that as many lenders as possible are participating with the loan guarantee programs offered through the state’s California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank) and which are administered by SBDC-OC. “The other is to roll out our own direct loan program using the credit scoring models that the SBA Office of Financial Assistance and Credit Risk Management have pioneered for their own portfolio management,” he said.

Ely is a UCLA business economics alumnus and longtime Yorba Linda resident. He also serves as vice chairman of the board of directors for Orange County’s California International Bank and serves on its directors’ loan committee. Since 2004, Ely 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 U.S. Small Business Administration as their Financial Services Champion of the Year. In the meantime, while helping small businesses ride the waves of success, Ely rides waves of his own with morning surfing sessions each day in Newport Beach.

A graduate of the University of Illinois, Ocasio holds certification as an Economic Development Finance Professional (EDFP) from the National Development Council, New York, N.Y.

A Redlands resident, he is a founding member of the Small Business Development Corporation of Orange County which focuses on the development of underserved communities and funding opportunities for small businesses and nonprofits owned by minorities, women, veterans and the disabled. Established in 2001, the corporation is a nonprofit public-private economic development organization residing under California’s IBank. It is one of seven development corporations around the state that comprise The Association of Financial Development Corporations, an industry trade association led by Ocasio.

Over the past 22 years, Ocasio has overseen the expansion of SBDC-OC’s board to incorporate a cross-section of experts in various industries and has spearheaded the corporation’s growth to encompass an array of California’s capital access programs assisting small business owners as well as the organization’s direct lending assistance program, the Entrepreneur Loan Fund launched in 2018 which broadens the corporation’s capacity to serve the small business community.