Sara Hellerud did not waste any time when she heard about the federal recovery plan to stimulate the economy earlier this year.

“I went right to my bank and said, ’I want some of those Obama bucks,”’ said the Rochester small business owner.

And after about two months of filling out forms about every day, Hellerud landed a Recovery Act-supported Small Business Administration loan of about $43,000 through her local Wells Fargo Bank.

That allowed the former Mayo Clinic worker to reach her dream of owning a beauty salon. She used the loan to finish buying Salon Chic and Day Spa, a northwest Rochester business she started buying on contract in 2007.

She did not have to pay a fee for the loan, which is 95 percent guaranteed to the bank by SBA.

“The terms and interest are excellent,” she says. “It saves me a significant amount each month, so I can put more into my business and staff.”

As politicians, economists and analysts debate if the recession has ended and how to create more jobs, Hellerud and her staff are now busy coloring hair and waxing eyebrows for 11 hours a day Monday through Friday and eight hours on Saturdays.

That’s the kind of story that Edward Daum likes to hear. Daum, the director of the Minnesota SBA office, is working to get federal recovery or stimulus money into the hands of small business owners to jump-start the stalled economy.

“They are the backbone of our economy. About 95 percent of businesses in Minnesota are considered small,” he says.

Minnesota SBA has issued 25 loans for a total of $7.5 million in Olmsted County this year. While most of them involved stimulus funds since the Recovery Act was passed in February, none of those were the highly touted America’s Recovery Capital or ARC loans.

The SBA has issued 1,127 ARC loans of $35,000 each nationally since that program started this year. Minnesota has 195.

While no businesses in Olmsted County received an ARC loan, Mower County has two, as does Goodhue County.

It is unclear why southeastern Minnesota businesses or their banks have not stepped up for more of the $255 million available nationally from the ARC program. However, Daum sees it as a golden opportunity for businesses that are struggling, wanting to expand or are even just starting out.

His office receives inquiries about ARC every day.

While he is trying to find takers for the loans, Hellerud is using her loan to make her salon a stronger business and keep a high level of customer service.

She keeps adding services like permanent cosmetics, Botox treatments, eyelash extensions, body wraps, ear candling, massages, chemical peels and others.

“I want to be a one-stop shop,” she says. “I challenge you to find something in the beauty business that we don’t do.”

To deliver such a wide array of services and to deliver them well, Hellerud says she depends on a talented crew of 17 women. Half of them are direct employees and the rest rent space from her.

In an industry known for workers bouncing from salon to salon, she is introducing things like matching IRA contributions for her longtime staffers and helping them get better deals on health coverage.

“Employee retention is very important. I want to have a place where people want to work,” she says.

From his vantage point as a business adviser, the SBA’s Daum says Hellerud is taking the right steps and making good use of the recovery funds that “trickled down” to her after she asked for them.

“She is very smart. She is definitely doing the right thing to keep her staff, which keeps her business stable,” he said.