Full Name
Alejandro Contreras
Job Title
Director of Preparedness, Communication and Coordination, Office of Disaster Assistance
Company
Small Business Administration
Speaker Bio
Alejandro is the Director of Preparedness, Communication and Coordination for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Disaster Assistance. Since 1953, the SBA has approved over $67 billion in affordable disaster loan assistance to more than 2.2 million homeowners, renters, businesses and nonprofit organizations for natural disasters. In response to COVID-19, SBA has provided over 3.6 million Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) for $198.9 billion, and an additional 5.7 million EIDL Advances for $20 billion. In his current role, Alejandro coordinates the SBA’s efforts to promote disaster preparedness, recovery and mitigation. Alejandro is also responsible for strengthening the SBA’s role in disaster recovery by building interagency coordination and leveraging private-public partnerships.

Alejandro joined the SBA in 2005, and has worked in various roles responding to many of the country’s most devastating and costly disasters, including: Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma (2005); Greensburg, Kansas Tornado (2007); Iowa Floods and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike (2008); BP Oil Spill (2010); Joplin, Missouri Tornado (2011); Hurricane Sandy (2012); Louisiana Floods (2016); Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria (2017); and Hurricanes Michael and Florence, the California Wildfires (2018-2020), and COVID-19 (2020).

Alejandro earned a bachelor’s degree in government from California State University of Sacramento and has a master’s degree in strategic public relations from George Washington University.
Twitter Handle
@sbagov
LinkedIn
Alejandro Contreras