Washington PTAC Welcomes new advisors to the team! PTAC advisors use national best practices to counsel businesses on how to find, bid on, and win public sector contracts and subcontracts. Advisors provide 4,000 hours of advising each year. Businesses that take advantage of this no-cost service win over $300 million in contracts and subcontracts each year.
Jennifer Mitchelljoined Washington State Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) as an advisor following her retirement after 25 years of civilian service with the federal government. Jennifer most recently served as the Small Business Specialist at Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM) in the U.S. Army’s Mission and Installation Contracting Command. Read more about Jennifer...
Maryam Lynch-Tate joins Washington State Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) as a new Business Outreach & Training Specialist with over 25 years of marketing communications, public speaking, facilitation and training, strategic planning, and public and community relations experience. Read more about Maryam...
Melinda Martirosian joins PTAC as a new advisor with over 12 years’ experience managing a Small Business Program for a large business contractor as a Small Business Liaison Officer (SBLO). As an SBLO she had the responsibility of monitoring and ensuring that small businesses had maximum practical opportunity on the contracts awarded. While being an SBLO she was awarded the 2011 Champion of Inclusion Award from the Port of Seattle. Read More about Melinda...
Contact Us
Contact a PTAC Counselor today for assistance with all your government contracting questions. Click on a counselor's name to email them or give them a call at the phone number listed.
SAM.gov Challenges – Many firms are experiencing challenges registering or updating SAM.gov, the required database for federal contracting. Entity address validations continue to be the #1 issue since the switch from Dun & Bradstreet to the new provider. Delays in SAM.gov are causing nationwide disruptions to the federal contracting process and in some cases are resulting in small businesses missing out on opportunities. We recommend firms continue to be diligent in submitting help tickets through the GSA systems.
IT Professional Services: The Department of Enterprise Services (DES) is reaching out to purchasers and vendors for feedback on the first three IT contracts to be released soon: IT Project Management, IT Development and Information Security. The Request for Information (RFI) for IT Project Management is posted in WEBS and is available for response until May 11, 2022.
SBIR: Congress has not yet reauthorized the Small Business Innovation Research program set to sunset in September of this year. The reauthorization passed the House, but is stalled in the Senate. Read commentary here.
New HUBZone Requirements – Read full details here. Highlights include:
SBA HUBZone map is still frozen and will be updated July 1, 2023 (instead of January 1 2022 as planned).
Employers are no longer able to simply pay a HUBZone resident to “count” them as an employee. The worker must provide legitimate work for the firm. SBA is now requiring job descriptions for all HUBZone employees that are working for the firm less than 30 hours per week. This requirement applies to new applicants as well as existing certified firms undergoing re-examination.
Clarified (limited) legacy employee definition and documentation requirements if firm falls below 35% requirement at the time of annual recertification.
Clarified “attempt to maintain” requirement for HUBZone contractors that fall below 35% requirement.
Bid Opportunities
Want contracting opportunities delivered daily to your email? Check out PTAC’s bid matching system. Here's a sample of what you can find:
Attend this free, virtual summit to access critical federal resources, learn new business strategies, meet other business owners and chat with industry experts! This 4-day, action-packed event will include honoring small businesses around the country, educational sessions, online business resources, and exciting speakers.
This month we have a special guest joining us for Friday Follow-up session. David Walz the Deputy Small Business Program will cover the following topics
What are the important aspects in a Capabilities Statement
How to engage with Small Business Liaison's
Do's and Don'ts with relationship building
Tips and techniques on how to market to Federal Agencies
How they use the Dynamic Small Business Search
Be prepared to ask questions about how to develop a relationship and learn how to be a successful partner with Naval Undersea Warfare Center-Keyport.
The main focus is to share knowledge on growing your business with government contracting
The annual conference provides a day of community building, panelists, shared-experience, and live Q&A for women across our state. Held in spring each year, INSPIRE is a wonderful opportunity for you to meet other woman-identifying entrepreneurs, build connections, and gain insights and ideas to help your business.
The SE WA PTAC/SBDC Business Roundtable is an open forum discussion where you can learn from PTAC about government contracting, and from Business Advisors with the Small Business Development Center about how to grow your business.
Join this short zoom preparation meeting to test your camera and audio as well as start to formulate a pitch for Wednesday's workshop. Learn how to navigate zoom screens and prepare for the ICEBREAKER you will have the day of the workshop.
What are socio economic certifications and do you qualify? This session focuses on federal socio economic certifications and the process to obtain them.
Govology classes, live and on demand, are Free for Washington PTAC clients – contact your PTAC counselor for access. Click here for the list of Govology this months live classes.
PTAC provides technical assistance to help Washington businesses successfully compete in the government marketplace. A program of the Thurston Economic Development Council, in partnership with the following subcenters:
