Natalia Olson Urtecho

Contact Information
Member
Title: 
Regional Administrator, Mid-Atlantic Region
Address: 
Phone Number: 
(610) 382 - 3090
Email Address: 
Natalia.Olson@sba.gov

Natalia Olson-Urtecho was the Regional Administrator for the United States Small Business Administration. As Regional Administrator for Region III, Olson-Urtecho was responsible for the delivery and management of SBA’s small business programs, financial assistance, and business development program initiatives throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.

The Region III office, headquartered near Philadelphia in King of Prussia, Pa., serves a population approaching 29.5 million in the seven SBA district offices of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pa.; Wilmington, Del.; Baltimore, Md.; Clarksburg, W.V.; Richmond, Va., and Washington, D.C. Olson-Urtecho manages a field staff of more than 100 loan, business, and community outreach specialists. She works cooperatively with local lenders and successful firms across the region, overseeing more than $34.2 billion in federal government contracts for goods and services purchased from local entrepreneurs.

Olson-Urtecho has professional and personal experience in international collaboration, commercialization of clean technologies, environmental planning, sustainable building, zoning, land use, transportation, public engagement and infrastructure policies and development. As founder, president and CEO of EG, a company dedicated to helping public and private entities become more profitable through environmentally friendly and socially responsible planning and strategies, she designed several management and development programs to move entrepreneurial clean technology ventures from vision to startup and profitable businesses. Before founding EG, Olson-Urtecho was a transportation and land use planner at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and was director of global initiatives at H2L2, an architectural and planning firm with projects in 42 countries.

Olson-Urtecho has more than 15 years of experience working with international, regional and local entities in the Philadelphia region and abroad in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. While at the U.S. Department of State, Olson-Urtecho worked in Budapest, Hungary, on NATO accession, economic and political policies, environmental issues, science and technology property rights, infrastructure development and served as chief of protocol.

She was previously appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to the U.S. Innovation Advisory Board and by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and Zoning Code Commission.

Olson-Urtecho received the Business Journal 2010 Minority Business Leader Award and in 2009 received the Women of Distinction Award for her work toward building a green economy. She has lived in seven countries and speaks Spanish, French and Portuguese. She holds a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Design and a bachelor’s in political science from Northeastern University and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University.