THE GIST
Julie Verratti will put her considerable experience in government, politics, and brewery ownership to work in a new role beginning March 1. The Biden administration has named Verratti as the associate administrator of field operations for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA); Verratti announced the new role Feb. 19. She was previously an owner-operator of Denizens Brewing Co. in Silver Springs, Maryland and served on the board of directors for the national Brewers Association (BA), including three years as chair for the trade organization’s Diversity Committee.
In her new position, Verratti will oversee the SBA’s 68 field offices and 10 regional offices, which Verratti calls the “customer service arms and face of the agency.” She says her experience of weathering COVID as a small business owner whose industry straddles manufacturing, hospitality, wholesale, and retail will equip her with invaluable perspective.
“The mission of [the SBA] is to help businesses start, grow, and succeed. Period,” Verratti tells GBH. “I’m looking forward to bringing that empathy and customer service perspective when small businesses have been hit so hard this year, being that force for good.”
WHY IT MATTERS
Between 2010 and 2015, Verratti served as senior advisor to the SBA and reported to two people, Jess Knox and Rob Hill, who held the position she is now filling, giving her valuable institutional perspective in addition to her background as a small business owner.
“It’s really important as we’re hopefully turning the corner sometime soon on recovery from COVID—both from a public health and economic perspective—to have people in positions in the government with this perspective,” Verratti says. “It seems like the Biden-Harris administration is tapping all these really great people who are subject matter experts and are coming at it from a good government perspective. And that’s a perspective I believe: that government can be a power for good.”
Because she does not formally begin her new job until March 1, Verratti says she cannot comment on specific policy priorities or SBA initiatives.
As a result of the new role, Verratti will be stepping away from operations at Denizens and has resigned her board position with the BA. (Verratti chaired the Diversity Committee from 2018-2020, then again served in the role for the past six months after prior chair Kevin Blodger stepped down.) Denizens’ other owners include Verratti’s wife, Emily Bruno, and brother-in-law, Jeff Ramirez, who will continue to own and operate its two brewpubs; sales manager Ben Hunter has been promoted to senior sales manager and will take on some of the sales duties previously executed by Verratti. Both the brewery and BA will surely miss Verratti’s leadership.
In naming her a GBH Signifier in 2017, Bryan Roth wrote: “With growing responsibility within the craft beer industry’s representative trade organization, Verratti now provides a distinct and enthusiastic voice for small business owners and diversity at a moment in time when the Brewers Association places a premium on both those things.”
Verratti says the job with the SBA does feel like something of a homecoming for her. When previously working for the SBA, she spent time at the agency’s headquarters as well as in its D.C. and Chicago field offices.
“From a management perspective, I’m excited to bring that type of empathy, because I’ve done the job of being in the field office,” she says.
The beer industry has benefited from Verratti’s leadership and political and governmental savvy for seven years. A 2018 GBH article about her (unsuccessful) candidacy for Maryland’s lieutenant governor and her appointment as new chair of the BA’s Diversity Committee noted that “advocate” is the most apt word to describe Verratti.
She’s been a strong voice, both through Denizens and her work with the BA, for inclusion and equity in the brewing industry. She explained to Good Beer Hunting in 2018 that she, Bruno, and Ramirez run Denizens as a business that “accepts people for exactly who they are as human beings.”
“The things we really take a stand on are principles. The principle of equality, the principle of equal opportunity to economic access, the principle of treating everyone with respect and dignity,” she told GBH in 2018. “That’s not necessarily a partisan thing. I think that’s a human being approach, right?”
This perspective will be a welcome one at the SBA, which has enormous power and responsibility to create economic opportunities for existing and prospective small business owners.
A 2018 report prepared for the SBA found “access to capital is still a driving factor that is disproportionately affecting minority-owned businesses, especially those owned by Blacks and Hispanics. … While minorities make up 40 percent of the U.S. population, they own only 20 percent of the employer businesses.”
The report concludes that equalizing access to small business resource is an economic policy imperative for the agency: “Given the role of small businesses in job creation and economic growth, policymakers need to ensure that entrepreneurs and creditworthy firms are able to secure adequate financial resources for growth and success.”
In a press release announcing her new role, Verratti says she’ll heed this critical call.
“This is an urgent time to work tirelessly on bold and equitable solutions for the hard-working women and men who operate the millions of small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and communities.”
Words by Kate Bernot