First off, I am new to this community, and I just wish to say greetings to all. I must admit that my intentions on joining up with the SBA, was to find new potential customers, for the company that I work with that is expanding exponentially. Here is my story. I am head of sales and marketing for 3T Marketing Services, and I do not feel like I work a "regular job", but I feel like I am in a real career. To make a long story short, when I joined the company in December of 2011, the company was just starting out and was taking off fast. I was excited to just be a part of this great company and its wonderful growth. Well most new small businesses as we all know fail within the first few years. I never for saw that with the new company I worked for, because of our rapid growth and the fact that I figured that since we market for businesses and do consulting work, we were always going to be needed and recession proof. Boy was I wrong, and we got hit hard when business tapered off for some time. Companies everywhere are in serious trouble, and just stopped spending huge budgets on advertising. I had to get creative to drum up new business to avoid being on the "chopping block" myself. Well to make a long story short, our CEO was able to get a "Hail Mary" before we were in danger of closing our doors, and obtained a much needed loan. We had barely been around for a year, so I was sure we were doomed, because under capitalization is one of the major reasons most businesses fail, and who was going to fund a company that had been around for that short of time. Most banks require that a business have its doors open for at least 3 years, and a ton of financials during that period as well as collateral, ridiculous requirements, and so on and so forth. You almost have a better chance of hitting the lottery in most cases. Well I tell you what. I believe in paying it forward and what happened to our company was nothing short of a miracle. My CEO applied for a small business loan online from capital direct funding, but I wasn't holding my breath for it to go through for us to be saved. I only found out about it through some nosing around on my own and cozying it up to an executive administrative assistant, but that is another story for another time. Any who, I heard through the grapevine that the loan was approved in about 72 hours with no personal guarantee. Normally my b.s. meter would be all the way up if I heard of such a loan with fast funding and no personal guarantees, but I witnessed it with my own two eyes. My job, as well as countless others who still remained were saved. After the additional influx of capital, some of my laid off co workers even got rehired; Some really good friends too! Forgive me for the long drawn out story, but I feel extremely blessed to have had my career saved, because aside from loving what I do, I had a new addition to my family that was on the way that I had to support. It was to be my second child, and I don't where we would be had my company had gone under. Even when my neighborhood was torn apart from Hurricane Sandy, I assessed the damage with a smile, because I felt it could have been worse, and at least with my jobs income, I could get whatever damage their was fixed until insurance would kick in. This is where my story ends, but if it could be used as a catalyst to help at least one person, then our struggles were not in vain and I have done my part to "Pay it forward." Thank you for taking the time to read my amazing story, and I wish you all health wealth and blessings!