Wells Fargo & Co. approved more than $548 million in Small Business Administration 7(a) loans nationwide in the first half of the federal fiscal year. The company announced the results Friday as it opened its annual Small Business Appreciation Celebration.

“SBA loans are an important financing tool for many small business owners and we want to do everything we can to help small businesses stay competitive and grow,” said David Rader, head of SBA lending.

Wells Fargo also is the largest SBA 7(a) lender in dollars in 12 states for the first six months of the fiscal year, including Nevada.

SBA 7(a) loans are extended to qualifying businesses in a wide range of industries that in general have average revenues of less than $20 million and 500 or fewer employees.

Contact reporter Chris Sieroty at csieroty@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893.

Name Abundance Generation

Founders Karl Harder, Louise Wilson, Bruce Davis

Company started Abundance was founded in Oct 2009 but has only been authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority since July 2011

Number of employees 7 full-time staff plus a “very able” team of creatives, lawyers and renewable energy experts who work on specific deals

Based in Shepherds Bush

What’s the big idea?

Harder calls it “democratic finance” – allowing anyone to invest directly in renewable energy projects in the UK with a minimum £5. He says: “We want to give back to people control over where their money is invested and how it generates a return. Renewable energy is the starting point, but we believe that democratic finance could be a more sustainable source of finance for other forms of public infrastructure investment such as schools, hospitals and social impact initiatives.”

What do they do differently?

Harder says all investors, whether they are small or big, get access to the same opportunities and same levels of service and customer experience.

“The minimum £5 investment is unique in the market,” he adds.

The website provides a direct connection with the projects customers invest in, providing live information about the energy produced, the weather at the site and the expected return investors are earning.

How did it come about?

Davis was involved in the creation of the world’s first peer-to-peer lending site, zopa.com, and was working as an anthropologist studying money and our usage of it in everyday life.

By chance, he bumped into Harder in the British Library, the two began chatting over coffee, and Harder soon found himself talking about how to find ways of involving communities in funding renewable energy projects. Wilson came on board, and three years later, the team created the final model and produced something that Harder says is “truly radical in its approach compared to more conventional forms of investment”.

Its lead investors are NESTA – a charity whose mission is to “help people and organisations bring great ideas to life” – and Panahpur, a social investment foundation created in 1907 as a community for orphaned children.

Who are their clients and how do they work with them?

Companies such as The Resilience Centre in the Forest of Dean. They are developing community renewable energy projects and are looking for ways to involve the wider community locally and nationally in funding the project, as well as getting a return based on the money made from generating and selling green energy.

How is the business plan going – and where do they hope to be in five years?

“We are working with a number of companies who have projects including wind, solar, hydro and anaerobic digestion technologies which will be available very soon through the website,” Harder says.

Unfortunately, the first project – the Resilient Energy Great Dunkilns – has been delayed due to problems with the supply of the wind turbine. This meant the offer had to be suspended until the issues are resolved and all cash invested returned to customer accounts.

Davis says it is “disappointing and frustrating when we had gathered such a great and supportive group of investors”, but he remains confident.

Their killer advice for new start-ups

Harder says: “The true measure is not how slick the business plan looks, but how well the team responds and supports each other when the inevitable challenges arise from trying to do something that is genuinely different, and ground-breaking. And it is overcoming those challenges, and building goodwill from customers, that makes it all worthwhile.”

A Seabrook electrical contracting company and an Exeter-based economic development organization will be honored May 17 by the Small Business Administration as part of its annual Small Business Week celebration.

Linda Richardson, the president of Richardson Electrical Co. Inc., knew that her company had been nominated for an award but was nonetheless surprised when she got the word.

“We are extremely honored and pleased to be nominated for the distinction that this award represents for our company and our employees,” she said about being named the 2010 SBA Subcontractor of the Year for the region that covers the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Laurel Bistany, executive director of the Exeter-based Regional Economic Development Center, was named Financial Services Champion of the Year for her organization’s lending and support contributions to the small-business community in southern New Hampshire.

Richardson, who joined the firm 2001, said the company has been a family-owned business for more than five generations stretching back to 1899. Richardson Electrical had developed its reputation in the 1950s with its work at water and wastewater treatment plants, and Richardson said at one point in the 1970s the company had built, repaired or modified every major water and wastewater treatment plant in New England.

Richardson said the company has branched out considerably over the past few decades in the industrial and commercial electrical contracting sectors to include medium and high voltage substation and distribution systems, radio industry projects, commercial buildings, marine and bulk unloading facilities, biotechnology and food processing, and green and renewable energy projects.

Richardson said the company recently completed a major wind turbine installation at the Otis Massachusetts Military Reservation and has ongoing projects at New Boston Air Force Station and Westinghouse in Newington. Richardson Electrical has just begun a major subcontracting project at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.

Richard Electrical works closely with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and depending on the amount of project work throughout New England, the company can employ as many as 40 highly trained workers. Richardson Electrical was nominated by Environmental Chemical Corp., a larger Massachusetts-based contracting company that has partnered with Richardson on multiple projects, including Otis Air Force Base and at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

The SBA Subcontractor of the Year Award recognizes a single subcontractor in each of SBA’s 10 national regions for exceptional performance and recognizes dedication, innovation and outstanding performance. The SBA reported the comprehensive evaluation guidelines include overall management, delivery performance, technical capabilities, special achievements, labor relations, cost performance, financial strength, customer interface and exceptional results.

“It was an unexpected pleasure,” said Bistany about the first SBA honor for the REDC. She said the REDC, a nonprofit organization created in 1994, was nominated by the N.H. Small Business Development Center for the REDC’s wide range of activities to support job creation and economic development in the region.

“We see ourselves as ambassadors of community and economic development here in southern New Hampshire,” Bistany said.

At the REDC, Bistany oversees financing, grant development, fund-raising, and creating a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, or CEDS, for the region. She is also responsible for administering the REDC revolving loan fund, which has underwritten millions of dollars in loans to help businesses maintain or expand their operations in the challenging economic times since the 2008 financial meltdown.

“We are able to help companies who can’t access traditional sources of financing by lending to them directly,” Bistany said. The size of the companies helped range from two to 125 employees, and the loan amounts range from $35,000 to $500,000, she said. The SBA credits the REDC with creating or retaining more than 1,000 jobs in the region through its comprehensive loan opportunities.

As an example of the REDC’s quiet but strong economic impact, Bistany will oversee the creation of a business training center in Raymond by leveraging two federal grants for the building and its equipment.