Bay Colony Development Corp celebrates our 40th Anniversary this June. We were founded in June 1981 by David King and George Berbeco, David served as our President and George served as our Board Chair. Early Applications had to be hand delivered to SBA Boston District Office, and David would sit down with the loan officer to go over each application in person. Originally founded to administer the SBA 503 Program (now known as the 504 Loan Program), Bay Colony was formed with the mission of helping Small and Medium Sized businesses grow and be able to obtain long term fixed rate financing for long term assets. In 1981, we served the majority of the State of Massachusetts, and over the last 40 years we have expanded to serve growing small businesses statewide in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and the Northern counties in Connecticut. As we reflect back on the last 40 years, we thought it would be nice to compare where we started in 1981 to where we are today!
In 1981, we had…
- 2 employees
- 5 loan approvals totaling $1,177,000
- 0 closings
- Maximum debenture in 1981 was $500,000
- Interest rate ranged from 11.0% – 15.04%
- BCDC was renting a shared office in the basement of a building owned by one of its board members
In 2021, we have…
- 13 employees
- In FY 2020 we had 114 loan approvals totaling $64,679,000
- 105 loan closings for nearly $57,000,000
- Maximum debenture in 2021 is $5 million for traditional 504 borrowers and manufacturers and $5.5 million per project for Energy projects
- Interest rate averaged all-time lows below 3%
- Bay Colony Development Corp rents office spaces in Waltham, MA; Worcester, MA; Warwick, RI; Nashua, NH; Shelbourne, VT as well as having employees working remotely
- Our Longest Tenured employee has been with Bay Colony Development Corp. for 36 years. Mary Katherine Mansfield started working Part Time while attending school, and little did she expect 36 years later to be President and CEO of Bay Colony Development Corp.
- Additional Staff member tenures include Danielle Boutin at over 25 years; Caileen Horrigan and Betty Ule over 15 years; and Erik Adams at 11 Years
- In addition to the 504 loan Program, we now also offer an in house Micro Loan Program providing Small Businesses with loans up to $25,000
As we celebrate our 40th Anniversary, we know we could not have gotten to where we are without the relationships that we have built with our lending partners, SBA District offices, SBA Loan Processing Center and SBA headquarter staff as well as the support from Bay Colony Development Corp. Board Members. Sadly, in 2020 we lost one of our founding Board Members, Walter Huskins. We thank you for your support over the last 40 years, and we look forward to what the next 40 years will bring as we continue to Help Small Businesses Grow!