Last year's stimulus bill aimed to pump $275 billion into the economy through grants and loans-and more often than not, small local agencies and nonprofits are making the call about where that funding goes. In its April issue, SmartMoney magazine looks at the mom-and-pop operators who are handing out and spending the money.

Chris Helt is a man of action. The father of three runs a sandblasting operation, Helt Blasting Service, and grows 20 acres of soybeans in his backyard. He hunts, tinkers with his fleet of nine trucks and oversees maintenance on his father-in-law's convenience stores. He was too busy to notice when the whole nation was debating the Recovery Act. The bill's impact on his life, however, couldn't be more concrete. Every morning, it stares him in the face, in the form of the herd of shaggy Angus cows he bought with his stimulus loan. Last year the Department of Agriculture advanced Helt $30,000 to buy his first 24 head of cattle. Now the department hopes the novice cattleman will thrive and spread the wealth through the economy of Cherryvale, Kan.-population 2,200-the former railroad hub he calls home.

Helt, 34, delights in his herd; he contemplates his heifers the way aquarium owners watch their fish, studying their quirks and analyzing their temperaments. Cow No. 55 is his official favorite ("Big and gentle. She's just a good-looking cow."), but he seems even more enamored of unpredictable No. 8 ("She's crazy. I'm going to make her into hamburger!"). When he pours feed in their long cement trough, the cows circle and glare, shying from his attempts to pat their steaming noses. "Hey girl, why so skittish?" he implores, looking hurt. He praises cow No. 22 when she licks his gloved hand. "See?" he tells the herd. "I'm not so bad."

Helt couldn't get a cheap loan from the banks, and it's easy to see why: He's got a degree in construction engineering, but he'd never owned a cow in his life. He also has a mixed record in business. While Helt Blasting is booming (he's blasted paint off everything from an antique locomotive to a sewing machine), the motorcycle dealership he started with his brother-in-law went belly-up last year, and he recently sold a second business to a rival-Cherryvale, it turns out, wasn't big enough for two car washes. Still, Jim Dark, the farm-loan manager at the Department of Agriculture's office 10 minutes away in Independence, Kan., thought Helt could make a go of it as a mini rancher. So now it's cows. Or, more specifically, a cow-calf operation.

As he drives through town, texting friends on his cell phone and waving to folks in trucks passing by, Helt explains the economics of his new business: A $1,200 heifer will produce a calf every year that he can sell to a beef ranch for $500. Then there's all the expenses. Every week Helt drives to the Bartlett feed co-op, where he shells out $100 for 1,100 pounds of Ranchers Delight, a soybean and corn mixture. He has to pay for rent on his buddy's pasture ($4,200 a year), loan installments ($4,800), vet bills and gas. But when the loan's paid off in 2016? Then the profits flow in. Helt says he doesn't need a 401(k) or IRA-his cattle will produce an income stream steady as any bond fund.

Of course, that's assuming everything goes smoothly. Jerry Angel, a local cowman who sold Helt his heifers, says it's not easy to raise cattle when you have no experience; he's been getting plenty of calls from Helt seeking advice. Year one brought a battle with pink eye and a calf that disappeared in the middle of the night, never to return. The first delivery of 23 calves fetched just $9,875-$1,600 less than expected. More recently, four cows failed to get pregnant. But Helt is taking it all in stride. He's even cool with the teasing from friends who call him an "Obama lover" for taking a Recovery Act loan. Helt says he always offers the same retort: "I'll pay it back."

See Also:

Stimulus Gatekeepers: A Small-Town Troika
Stimulus Gatekeepers: Who They Really Are
The Stimulus Bill: How to Cash In