LINDENHURST, NY – Aug 8 – Sharon Newman, president of printing company Action Envelope, has been appointed to a three-year term with the Small Business Advisory Council of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.  She is the sole woman and  the only Long Islander in the nine member council,  which includes small business owners from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
“It’s very exciting to have been selected as the Long Island small business representative to this prestigious group.   Attending briefings on national and regional markets presented by leading economists  has provided me with a much larger perspective and has had an impact on  how I look at the nature of the Long Island business community,” said Ms. Newman. For example, the recent decline in housing prices may have a trickle-down effect on many businesses, potentially sapping consumer confidence and stalling growth.
The Council devotes time to discussing the special concerns that business owners have for their own companies as well as for their regions, fulfilling the Fed’s purpose of staying in touch with the realities that small businesses face as a result of federal policies on trade and interest rates.  Council members are selected based on their role as leaders in their business communities and must have a minimum of $10 million in annual revenue.  There are Advisory Councils in each of the twelve Federal Reserve banks, and the program was established in 1985 to improve communications with the various sectors of the economy within each Federal Reserve District.   
Ms. Newman hopes to send several clear messages to the Fed via her participation in the Advisory Council.   One is the difficulty of doing business on Long Island, where a number of factors combine to make it costly to do business.  Another is to highlight the tremendous growth and success of women-owned businesses.  Newman is well known in the Long Island business community and an active leader in many business groups, including the National Association of Women Business Owners – Long Island (NAWBO/LI), Long Island Women’s Agenda (LIWA) and the Long Island Postal Consumer Council.
Newman was a stay at home mom when her husband Ken founded Action Envelope in 1971 as a distributor of plain and printed envelopes.  When he died unexpectedly in 1993, Newman was left with three young children and no business experience. She jumped in, learned the business and kept the company growing. In 2000, her son Seth Newman joined the company, and the firm made its first foray onto the internet.