A month after Aikta Marcoulier started her new job overseeing 580,000 square miles of the West as the regional administrator for the Small Business Administration, her mother died.

Marcoulier’s mother, Dr. Rajeshvari Verma, was 70 when she succumbed in June to interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that destroys lung tissue.

Despite losing who her sister called the “glue” and “pillar” of their family, Marcoulier was able to move forward, not because she wasn’t grieving, but because she was living the lessons her mother taught. Lessons that formed Marcoulier to be the daughter, mother and business professional she is today.

Marcoulier, 44, was the first generation of her family to be born in the U.S. Her parents immigrated in 1977. Originally from India, her parents spent time in the Caribbean before moving to Chicago.

Marcoulier grew up in Davenport, Iowa, where she helped at her parents’ medical practice, filing paperwork and, as she got older, transporting blood draws to testing labs and typing her mother’s dictations.

“I didn’t know that was a small business when I was little,” Marcoulier said.

Looking back, Marcoulier realized she was involved with small businesses and business development every step of her life, including when she attended the University of Iowa, where she majored in economics and psychology, with the intent to go into business consulting.

Marcoulier graduated in 2001 and traveled to New York City to stay with a friend while she interviewed with 10 consulting firms in the city’s financial district. She was supposed to travel home Sept. 12 – but on Sept. 11, the unimaginable happened.

“The towers fell, my mom was freaking out, whole family was freaking out. Finally, I was able to get through,” Marcoulier said.

Marcoulier left the trip jobless and ended up returning to Colorado Springs where her parents had moved in 1998.

She worked for Cheyenne Mountain Resort at its fitness center until she was hired by the Native American Sports Council, where she helped Native American kids get involved with sports ranging from golf to boxing.

“It’s all about access,” Marcoulier said. “And so now thinking about it, I’m like, ‘This is all leading up to something.'”

And it was.

Cinemas under spotlight as Cineworld stares at possible bankruptcy

From there, Marcoulier worked with the Professional Bull Riders, running its partnership marketing. Then she saw an ad for a position at the Pikes Peak Small Business Development Center. That was in 2012.

“Now looking back, it’s all business development,” Marcoulier said. “It was all creating access. It’s all business development, getting people opportunities.”

And for the next 10 years as the center’s executive director, Marcoulier dedicated herself to helping cultivate access and connect small businesses with opportunities.

So, when the Small Business Administration came knocking about a new role, Marcoulier saw it as a chance to widen her reach.

As the Region VIII administrator for the SBA, Marcoulier oversees the agency’s small business programs and services in South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Colorado. She reports to Isabella Guzman, the administrator for the SBA.

“We are the arm, the branch, the boots on the ground for Administrator Guzman out in the field, promoting the programs and making sure everybody knows about what’s out there,” Marcoulier said.

For Marcoulier, that means traveling throughout the region in August and September to meet with small businesses, community resource centers and congressional members in order to understand the needs of the communities she serves, which, she said, encompasses a vast number of cultures, groups and demographics.

“I’m kind of an influencer, to get the message out to all the businesses on the main streets or the streets that aren’t known,” Marcoulier said.

Marcoulier is applying her expertise to enhance businesses throughout the West, but she also intends to share the experience and knowledge she gains from working as the regional administrator with her community.

That is not a surprise to Pikes Peak SBDC Financial Coordinator Becky Hager, who worked under Marcoulier.

“Her reach and creativity goes way beyond this office,” Hager said. “And, you know, all of us in the office really felt she needed a bigger stage.”

But on June 21, Marcoulier wasn’t thinking much about her spot on the SBA stage.

Marcoulier’s mother was in Phoenix receiving specialized care for her lung disease when she was rushed to the intensive care unit and put on the lung transplant list because her lungs were struggling to retain oxygen.

After a lifetime serving as a physician, it was her mother’s turn to be cared for; the doctors put her on 100% oxygen to keep her breathing.

Retail hot spots bubbling up in fast-growing Colorado Springs area

“Dad described it to me as like a wildfire,” Marcoulier said. “It’ll just wipe out everything in its way.”

Marcoulier raced to Phoenix to be with her mother. On the morning of June 22, her mother’s oxygen level was critically low.

“She answered all the questions yes or no,” Marcoulier said. “And I said, ‘Dad, she wants the mask off. She wants to go.'”

Marcoulier and her family gathered at a funeral home where her mother was to be cremated.

Her mother was laid in a cardboard box holding a bouquet of flowers. Marcoulier’s father touched his wife’s feet. Marcoulier’s husband and two sons Ashwin, 11, and Akshay, 8, stood beside her. When the time came, Marcoulier turned the dials of the crematorium.

Marcoulier said that seeing her mother’s life end in cardboard box is an image she can’t shake.

“If you’re going to end up in a box, how are you going to make every day count?” Marcoulier said.

For Marcoulier’s mother, that meant saving lives as a physician. For Marcoulier, it means helping small business owners not only be able to put food on their table, but make their livelihoods thrive.

“Everything we have done and everything that we still do, I think it’s kind of based on those types of lessons,” Shonu Verma, Marcoulier’s sister, said. “And I think when you have a really close family, you carry that feeling over to the people in your circle, in your professional circle and your community circle. You have that same kind of love.”

Verma sees her sister carry that same kind of energy and passion into her work.

“I think she understands the issues that people face,” Verma said. “Not just as individuals, but with their businesses. And she has compassion for (them). And I think that’s what enabled her to kind of take that next step.”

Marcoulier expects to join Colorado Springs’ cybersecurity industry after she leaves the SBA, as her position comes with an expiration date. Whenever President Joe Biden is out of office, so is she.

“It’s OK that I don’t have political aspirations,” Marcoulier said. “This job is to push small business support. And that’s what I love.”

Old Spaghetti Factory poised for Colorado Springs opening