By Erica Grieder STAFF WRITER
Dr. Tennille Johnson wasn’t looking to become a full-time business owner when she launched Scrubs to the Rescue, an online retailer, three years ago. The website was a hobby, she explained Thursday, as well as something she needed as a pharmacist: a place where she could buy scrub uniforms in a range of colors, patterns and styles.
Many other health care professionals were seeking the same thing, it turned out, and Johnson saw sales grow quickly. Earlier this year, she was matched with a small business mentor from JPMorgan Chase in a program the bank launched in 2020 to provide advice for minority small business owners. The experience has been “transformational” for her business, Johnson said. She left her full-time job as a pharmacist this year to focus on her work as CEO of Scrubs to the Rescue, which now has four employees.
“The financial side is probably the end game,” said Johnson, reflecting on the small business experience. “We also need the education and the support.”
Chase has found that to be a common theme among small business owners, said Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, who visited Houston this week as part of a nationwide tour of Chase regional offices. The bank has some 30,000 employees in Texas.
Dimon took the occasion to announce the bank’s new, nationwide Special Purpose Credit Program, focused on expanding credit access for small businesses in historically underserved neighborhoods. The program is part of Chase’s $30 billion racial equity commitment, announced in 2020, and was piloted in Houston, Dallas, Detroit and Miami over recent months.
In Houston, the credit program has helped improve loan approval rates in under-served areas, said Ben Walter, Chase’s CEO of Business Banking. Before it launched, loan approvals in those areas were about 11 percentage points less than in other neighborhoods.
“The aim of this program is to close as much of that gap as possible, and we’ve been able to close it to two or three points,” Walter said.
The credit program is anonymous from the customer’s point of view, he added: “We don’t want people to feel uncomfortable, or that they got special treatment.”
The one-on-one coaching program, now in 21 cities, has mentored some 2,600 Black, Latino and women business owners since its 2020 launch.
Housing, too, is part of Chase’s racial equity commitment — a recognition, Dimon said, that many Americans build wealth through housing, and many small business owners borrow against their homes, especially if they can’t access credit. During the first year of the program, for example, the bank allocated $4 billion to help 16,000 homeowners refinance at favorable interest rates.
During a moderated discussion Thursday, Dimon advocated for government to play a greater role in supporting American workers and businesses, especially in light of inequities revealed during and exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.
During a normal recession, he said, you typically see job losses along the full income spectrum. When unemployment spiked in 2020, however, most of the COVID-related job losses fell on lower-wage workers – a setback with lingering economic effects.
Absent better policy, Dimon said, corporate America’s most earnest efforts can feel like pushing a rock up a hill. But Chase’s commitment to racial equity is here for the duration, he said. The program’s initial $30 billion investment is expected to last five years, after which he expects the bank to extend it and incorporate lessons learned.
“Programs work,” Dimon said. erica.grieder@chron.com