ALEXANDRIA, Va. -NCUA hosted a Partnering and Leadership Successes workshop last week on how to better serve small businesses and their smaller capital needs. More than 230 credit union representatives signed up to attend NCUA Board Member Debbie Matz' free workshop March 25. She co-hosted the conference with NCUA Vice Chair JoAnn Johnson, who worked with her to update NCUA's member business lending regulation. The California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington credit union leagues, the Credit Union Association of the West, the CUNA, and the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions are also co-hosting the event. At press time, Small Business Administration General Counsel David Javdan was scheduled to be lunchtime keynote speaker. Since SBA opened their guaranteed loans to all credit unions Feb. 14, 2003, the number of SBA credit union lenders has nearly doubled. The member business lending workshop was so popular when it was held in Washington, D.C. in October that NCUA decided to hold another one on the West Coast. For more information on the workshop, which is filled to capacity, including the full agenda, see www.ncua.gov then click on "PALS".