NYBDC Vice President Shelley Smith says the best thing about working with small businesses is helping people realize their dreams.  And recently she was able to put her desire and ability to help others to work in a personal way.

During a February vacation, Shelley spent a week in New Orleans on a mission trip, helping rehabilitate the home of a single mother and her teenage daughter whose house was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina.  Shelley and 10 others spent their days spackling dry wall, sanding and priming walls and working to move the house closer to a point where it can become inhabitable again so the mom and daughter can move out of a FEMA trailer and back to their home.

For Shelley, this was a personally rewarding experience, helping a family who had used all its own resources and other financing available to hurricane victims and had no other means of getting the house repaired.  She said the house still has a long way to go, but she feels great about the work she did to help the woman and her daughter move closer to their dream of returning home.

Her work at NYBDC brings a similar kind of satisfaction to her.  “I like to help small business people get started and grow their business.  There are so many different kinds of businesses out there, and just talking to business owners is fascinating,” she said.   “No two days are the same. Each day, I’m looking at different nuances of an industry and meeting a lot of interesting people.”

She admires the enthusiasm her clients have about their business or the project they are undertaking and says, “It’s hard not to catch this enthusiasm.”

Shelley works out of NYBDC’s Syracuse office and serves clients in Cayuga, Jefferson, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties.  A resident of Camillus, she holds a bachelor’s degree in math from Clarkson University.  Prior to joining NYBDC two years ago, Shelley worked as a commercial loan underwriter for HSBC Bank.  In her free time, she enjoys a good game of tennis and doing volunteer work with her church.