from the chair
Empowering Small Business
Preston R. Love, AWB Board Chair
When I moved to Washington state seven years ago, I didn’ t imagine that I would one day serve as chair of the board for AWB. I was solely focused on my position with State Farm and helping the thousands of people who work for us throughout this beautiful state grow and prosper.
But as I learned more about how the decisions that lawmakers make in Olympia can impact the state’ s business climate— and as I became familiar with AWB through a colleague who preceded me here in Washington— I became more and more convinced this was an organization worth investing in.
Now, as I begin my term as board chair, I can’ t think of a better way to influence the outcomes that affect our state’ s employer community, particularly small businesses.
Helping small businesses succeed is what I do every day at State Farm. Yes, we’ re a big corporation, but we are made up of thousands of agent offices across the country and right here in Washington. Each one of those agents is essentially a small business in the community they serve, employing staff and plugging into their community in a variety of ways. As they provide service to their customers, they are all about making each community a little better, whether it’ s sponsoring youth sports teams, volunteering for a nonprofit organization or helping other small businesses succeed. As I like to say, we do good by doing good.
Unfortunately, it’ s getting more difficult to do good these days because of policy choices coming out of the state Legislature. One example is the enormous tax increases we saw during the last legislative session, including a new sales tax on professional services that took effect Oct. 1, and higher business and occupation( B & O) taxes coming at the start of 2026 and 2027. These taxes hit small businesses especially hard, making it more difficult to start a business and grow a business. Government regulation is another obstacle getting in the way of too many businesses. Obviously, there’ s a critical role for regulation to keep our people safe and our state healthy, but we need to guard against overly burdensome and duplicative regulation that simply drives up the cost of doing business. AWB is working hard to make headway on both issues, pushing back against calls for higher taxes on employers and by commissioning a study to quantify the state’ s regulatory burden.
One of the things I’ m especially looking forward to during my tenure as chair is the release of this regulatory study early next year. We know intuitively that Washington is more regulated than other states, but now we’ re going to have concrete numbers to compare against the rest of the country. We’ ve heard from Gov. Bob Ferguson that he’ s not here to defend government but to reform it, so I’ m hopeful we will see some real progress soon.
We’ ve got some big challenges ahead, but AWB is well positioned to meet them thanks in large part to those who have gone before me as chair. We are also fortunate to have a truly outstanding Executive Committee, board of directors, and staff team who go to work every day focused on improving the state’ s business climate.
For all these reasons, I’ m excited about the future at AWB and the opportunity this organization provides to tell the employer story. It’ s not a complicated story. It boils down to this: We want Washington state to be a state that’ s open for business. Thanks for being part of it.
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