Gov. Karen Mills?

The outgoing administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration said this week she left her post as the nation’s top advocate for entrepreneurs because she’s proud of what the agency has accomplished, and because “it’s a good time for transition.”

However, she stopped short of defining what her future plans would be, and she downplayed rumors circulating in Brunswick — where she lives with her husband, Bowdoin College president Barry Mills — and Augusta that her resignation is a prelude to a run next year for the Blaine House.

Mills spent 30 minutes Thursday morning on a conference call with four Maine media outlets — the first since sending a resignation email to SBA staffers four days earlier, on Feb. 11.

“This is the first call we’ve done after the announcement, and I wanted it to be with folks from Maine,” Mills said.

She fielded questions regarding her resignation, but deflected speculation that she is leaving Washington, D.C., in order to run for political office here.

When asked if she is considering a run for governor,

Mills — who was appointed to the SBA post in 2009 — paused before answering.

“My first task is to fulfill my promise to President Obama, to ensure an orderly transition,” she said. “I will be staying on until my successor is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and for the near term I am here and have not yet begun the process of considering future options.”

“I’m proud to work with a president who understands the importance of small businesses, and we’ve built a really solid foundation in this first term,” she said. “We had to meet the credit crisis [head-on], we had be able to get billions of dollars into the hands of small business owners when banks had frozen their credit lines.

“Then we simplified loan processes to make the SBA more accessible, took about 100 pages of paperwork out of some of the loan [regulations],” Mills added. “That signature set of activities has built a solid foundation for the agency to go forward.”

jtleonard@timesrecord.com