Miranda Pederson/Daily NewsHearing, urine and hair tests are some of the services performed at Occupational Screening.

When Gail McGuffey’s employer gave her two weeks’ notice that the business was about to close, she had to quickly decide her next course of action.

“I’m either out of a job or I start a business,” said McGuffey, of Scottsville.

The medical office she worked for shut its doors on a Friday in May 2008. That Monday, McGuffey opened her own drug and DNA testing business, dubbed Occupational Screening, at 905 Lovers Lane in Bowling Green. She wanted to open it soon after her previous employer closed, so she could retain its customers.

“I had never started a business before,” she said. “I prayed about it, and decided I was going to try.”

Nearly two years later, McGuffey not only survived the recession, but her business, which mostly consists of drug and alcohol testing for employers, is growing.

Fueling that growth is a loan she recently snagged from a state program, which offers funding to entrepreneurs and small business owners. McGuffey was the first person in Bowling Green to take advantage of the Kentucky Micro-Enterprise Loan Program.

The program recently got an infusion of $125,000 from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority and it’s offered through Community Ventures Corp., a nonprofit organization that helps people get small business and housing loans.

McGuffey has access to about $15,000 in loans, which she is taking out in increments. It has helped her hire a full-time office assistant and purchase a portable breath alcohol tester, which she takes to job sites to randomly test employees. She still has $5,000 in loans available.

“There’s a lot of people like me who need a little cash, but they don’t want a big amount,” she said.

Community Ventures opened a Bowling Green office in February. Since then, executive vice president Jason Nuetzman has worked with 55 local entrepreneurs and businesses.

“I think what we’re finding is that the current economy is really forcing some folks to rely more upon themselves and less upon an employer,” Nuetzman said. “We’ve had folks that had been employed 20-plus years, but then their job is gone.”

In McGuffey’s case, it was the second time she was laid off from a job. After she lost her job at A.O. Smith Electrical Products in Scottsville, McGuffey returned to school, studying to be a medical assistant at Draughons Junior College in Bowling Green. When she graduated in 2004, she was hired at a local medical office, where she performed drug testing and physicals.

When that business folded, she quickly rented an office space that was in the process of being remodeled. Her former employer gave her a few chairs, she found a used desk and brought her computer from home. She had no employees.

“It was pretty thrown together pretty quickly,” she said. “I’ve slowly but surely tried to add stuff to the office and add clients.”

She now serves up to 30 clients a day, although she admits it may be as few as two.

Since striking out on her own, McGuffey has overcome several obstacles.

When she first started her business, “I didn’t know anything,” she said. “I didn’t know about taxes. I didn’t know what kind of licenses I needed to have. I didn’t know anything.”

At first, McGuffey only performed drug tests by collecting urine samples from clients and sending them to labs. She was contacting more labs and garnering more clients when the economy tanked.

“Last year, when the economy went bad, I thought, ‘This is going to show whether I’m going to make it,’ ” she said. “So far, so good. I can see that it’s picking up a little bit.”

McGuffey now does on-site alcohol testing – a big part of that business is from trucking companies who want to make sure their employees are not drinking on the job.

She also performs DNA testing. While that part of the business is still slow, she’s had her fair share of clients who bring their children in for paternity tests.

She’s looking into other services, such as performing background checks.

“I think the demand is (increasing) just because of the drug problem in the world,” she said.

To keep up with that demand, McGuffey attended a forum in Cave City for business owners interested in U.S. Small Business Administration loans.

That’s where she met a Community Ventures representative and began discussing her need for cash.

A Community Ventures worker helped her fill out the necessary paperwork and she closed on the loan about two weeks ago.

“It can be difficult … a good deal of paperwork and tedious at times,” Nuetzman said about the loan process. “But that’s why the CVC’s here. CVC’s going to walk you through it and go through it with you. We’re going to make that path a little clearer for you.”

With Community Ventures’ help, McGuffey is confident her business will continue its upswing.

“I had to learn from scratch and I didn’t know how to run a business, and I’m still learning,” she said. “I’m hoping my business will continue to grow and expand.”