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Joe Ehrhardt

Executive

PPP
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Person
Role
Executive
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PPP
Updated

The profile

Founder and CEO of Teslar Software (3E Software, Inc.), a Springdale, Arkansas maker of community-bank loan software used by PPP lenders; the company took a $260,600 PPP loan that was forgiven.

Identity and role

Joe Ehrhardt is the founder, CEO, and chairman of 3E Software, Inc., which does business as Teslar Software. The company sells loan-process automation to community banks from Springdale, Arkansas. He still holds both roles; the company's leadership page lists him as CEO and chairman as of 2026.

Biography

Ehrhardt started in banking while at the University of Arkansas, where he took a computer-engineering degree and a master's in information systems (team bio and Talk Business 2011 profile), and ran software development at ANB Financial in Bentonville, building the loan-review and exception-tracking systems that became the seed of his product (Talk Business).

ANB Financial failed in 2008; Ehrhardt then worked as a contractor to First Financial Network, an FDIC contractor on the ANB receivership (Talk Business 2011). He incorporated 3E Software in 2008 and built the credit-and-exceptions tool he named Teslar (Talk Business; team bio).

The company and its PPP role

Teslar sells a SaaS platform of configurable modules (loan origination, exception and covenant tracking, e-signature, document workflow, SBA submission, portfolio and credit-risk management) that plug into a bank's core and imaging systems. Its standing pitch is that it will integrate with any core or the bank pays nothing.

The company reached PPP two ways: a PPP origination module and forgiveness tool for its community-bank customers, priced as software, and partnerships with fintechs and nontraditional lenders pushing loans through E-Tran at high volume. By the company's own count (Business Wire, July 2021), its software powered more than 20% of all 2021 PPP loans (about 1.3 million loans worth roughly $22 billion) at up to 80 loans per minute, and five of the SBA's fifteen top PPP lenders ran on it. Those are company claims.

The N.D. Texas opinion in the Womply–Capital Plus fee litigation (GovInfo) describes Womply's lender-facing portal as built with 3E Software d/b/a Teslar; the Womply–Benworth arbitration award likewise refers to the Teslar system. Teslar made no credit decisions and collected no agent fee. Teslar also built ppp.bank, a free PPP-forgiveness calculator fronted by Mark Cuban and Oklahoma banker Jill Castilla (American Banker).

Their own relief

Teslar took a PPP loan of its own: SBA loan-level data (via ProPublica and SBA.com) list 3E Software, Inc. of Springdale with a $260,600 loan from the First National Bank of Fort Smith, approved April 5, 2020 and forgiven as of May 27, 2021.

No litigation or enforcement names Joe Ehrhardt or 3E Software/Teslar as a defendant. The company appears in the PPP fee litigation — Oto Analytics d/b/a Womply v. Capital Plus Financial in the Northern District of Texas (we do not have a copy of the opinion; see the Capital Plus profile) — only as a third-party technology vendor, and the related Womply–Benworth arbitration (we have a copy of the award) has no Teslar party.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Ehrhardt still runs Teslar (leadership page). In April 2026 the company opened a new headquarters building in Springdale (Talk Business), roughly 50,000 square feet, developed with the local George family, with more than 100 people working there; in November 2025 it announced Iowa Trust and Savings Bank as a client (Business Wire). The company is privately held.

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