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Facing an overflow crowd of local entrepreneurs at the FedEx Institute of Technology on Monday, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen praised the ingenuity of small-business owners and promised to assist them in obtaining more government contracts.

Toward that end, Cohen presented “Doing Business with the Federal Government: Connecting Businesses with Opportunities,” a forum that attracted more than 250 participants.

Joining the Tennessee congressman were representatives from federal departments including the Small Business Administration; Energy; the General Services Administration; Homeland Security; the Minority Business Development Agency; Transportation; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Steve Cohen

“Small business is the heart of the American economy and it’s important that we support it,” Cohen said. “Small and minority businesses have played a historic effort in helping Memphis compete on a global level and we must ensure that those operations survive and are successful.”

One way for that to happen is by engaging more small-business owners in the federal contracting process, Cohen said. Too often, lucrative accounts are not awarded to local firms because qualified entrepreneurs don’t know how to participate.

That lack of education is something that local leaders hope to eradicate through events such as Monday’s program.

“The fact is, if our business owners don’t get contracts with the federal government then that means that somebody else will,” said Dexter Muller, senior vice president for community development with the Greater Memphis Chamber. “It’s up to us to help them along. With 80 percent of new jobs being created by small businesses, the main way for us to come out of the recession is by their success.”

Getting in the federal procurement game takes plenty of preparation and requires significant paperwork, said Saundra Jackson, senior area manager for the SBA. It also requires being added to the Central Contractor Registration database, which many small-business owners neglect to do.

Another weakness for many entrepreneurs is failing to develop specific plans for seeking government contracts, said George C. Jones Jr., project director of the South Atlantic Small Business Transportation Resource Center.

“Companies that compete for federal dollars are successful because they have a strategy,” Jones said. “You need to get an idea of what the competition looks like within your specific industry and then identify project opportunities.”

The message was one that Mary Singer, an advocate for women-owned small businesses, will pass on to others.

“We’ve got to do a better job of getting women and minority owners to the table and helping them compete for these contracts,” Singer said. “By doing that we’ll be able to bring a lot of people along with us and strengthen our local business community.”

– James Dowd: 529-2737

Small Business resources for government contracts

Central Contractor Registration: www.bpn.gov

Dept. of Energy: energy.gov

Dept. of Homeland Security: www.dhs.gov

Dept. of Transportation: www.dot.gov

General Services Administration: gsa.gov

Minority Business Development Agency: www.mbda.gov

Small Business Administration: sba.gov

South Atlantic Small Business Transportation Resource Center: sasbtrc.com

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: usace.army.mil

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