8(a) Graduate Honored by SBA SBA has named the owner of a Buffalo, NY, construction company its National 8(a) Graduate of the Year. Joan Yang, president of Rand & Jones Enterprises Co., was honored during Minority Enterprise Development Week in Washington. Yang founded R&J in 1985, and has built it into a $15 million company. It provides general construction services and building materials, as well as investing in real estate acquisition and development. George Burciaga, the 34-year old president of smarTECHS.net Inc. in Chicago, was named Minority Small Business Person of the Year. SBA presented the Administrator’s Leadership Award to Jeanette Brown, OSDBU director at the Environmental Protection Agency.