ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Ken Kerr was trained as a cook when he joined the Army straight out of high school in the mid 1980s.

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This spring, nearly two decades after his discharge, the Buffalo native went into the food business for himself, thanks to a new low-interest loan program for veterans in New York.

His wife, Elizabeth, had been working at the place — Bertha's Diner on Buffalo's Hertel Avenue strip — for years and they talked about buying it when they found out the previous owners planned to sell it and retire, Kerr said.

They looked at traditional bank financing, but the business plan didn't pencil out with the interest rates they offered.

"We probably could have gotten financed, but the numbers wouldn't have worked," Kerr said.

That's when Kerr — who was a city worker — says he stumbled on a press release announcing the state loan program that was posted on a political Web site he frequented.

"That salted it because the interest rate was terrific," Kerr said.

Last month, the Kerrs sealed the deal and took over the diner after borrowing $60,000 at 4.25 percent interest for seven years.

Federally backed business loans are available to veterans in several states, but New York's program is different. It is offered as a sort of partnership between the state's $154.5 billion public pension fund and a lending outfit that specializes in startup, early stage and expanding small businesses.

Together, they've agreed to provide fixed-rate, small-business loans for veterans at below-market interest rates.

The loans are backed by the federal government through a three-year Small Business Administration pilot program that started nationally last summer to help veterans and their family members who want to establish or expand small businesses.

So far, there have been 1,300 loans made through that program.

But most of those loans have been through banks and savings and loans that lent the money at or slightly above prevailing market rates, said Bill Elmore, the SBA's Associate Administrator for Veterans Business Development.

"The New York program is unique in the way it's structured," Elmore said.