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Vance and Loeffler Speak at Compotech in Brewer, Maine, Aug. 24, 2026

August 24, 2026 · The White House · 0:53:31

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Vice President JD Vance spoke at Compotech, a ballistics manufacturer in Brewer, Maine, on August 24, 2026, at an event opened by Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler. Loeffler told the company’s story as the SBA tells it: founder Paul Melrose started the business about 15 years ago with a single piece of equipment bought off eBay, and today it is “the fastest growing manufacturer in the entire state of Maine,” with nearly 100 local workers “producing lifesaving ballistics for our US Army.”

Vance’s argument was that the administration has changed which side the government is on for companies like this one: small firms facing federal contracting red tape “can work directly with Kelly’s team at the Small Business Administration so they can go toe-to-toe with their bigger peers,” because big businesses “have an army of lawyers that can cut through that red tape. Compotech doesn’t.” He framed the November choice in the same terms — “Do we want a party that provides good jobs or a party that provides a lot of welfare checks?” — and closed on the town itself: “the future is right here in Maine… I don’t want you to look at your own community as something that needs to be left behind.”

Why it matters

Small-business manufacturing is SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler’s portfolio, and this is the fraud-task-force Vice President making the economic case on a factory floor: SBA advocacy as the mechanism, a named Maine employer as the evidence. The claim that Compotech is Maine’s fastest-growing manufacturer is the SBA’s characterization, stated on the record here.

Sources: The White House, “Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks in Brewer, ME,” August 24, 2026 (official upload, embedded above; the upload’s description places the event in Brewer, ME). Remarks as delivered at the event.