In a major victory for the Professional Beauty Administration (PBA) and the salon industry, the Small Business Administration (SBA) recently issued a ruling that preserves the small business designation for hundreds of salon/spa businesses nationwide. In 2004, the SBA considered changing how the federal government would define “small business” for salons. Originally salons were designated as small if they made less than $6 million annual sales; the SBA planned to change the designation to a sizestandard threshold of 50 employees. The PBA successfully argued that such a change would not be in the best interest of the salon industry, and as a result, the PBA announced it would keep the small business standards as is. To learn more about it, visit www.probeauty.org/advocacy.