AMCOM's mission is to develop and deliver responsive aviation, missile and calibration materiel readiness to the Army. AMCOM exists to support the Soldier with a huge part in delivering readiness to the warfighter.
Small businesses are a significant contributor to the industrial base that AMCOM relies on to provide products and services in an efficient and innovative manner. Providing training required by a career field track would be a possible solution to provide skills to the Small Business Professional to understand and work with their industry partners to ensure they will be ready to meet the needs of the warfighter.
AMCOM's Human Dimension Level of Effort emphasizes that a well-trained, unified and adaptable team will assist in achieving a workforce ready to execute in support of Army priorities and mission.
For five years, there has been a movement within the Department of Defense (DoD) as they realized that Small Business Professionals have a significant role in over 20 percent of the Department's discretionary budget but yet they had no designated career field.
In April 2012, the Director of Department of Defenses (DoD) Small Business Programs (SBP) was designated as the Small Business Functional Advisor/Functional Leader (FL). The FL is responsible for ensuring the small business professional workforce is the right size in terms of enough people to accomplish the job and the right mix of levels of expertise to meet the needs of Army. Molding the small business professional with training and experience will add positive influence to the AMC and AMCOM's readiness mission.
In April 2013 a memo from the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, & Logistics (USD(AT&L)) directed the Small Business FL and the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to establish a curriculum for small business professionals certification. On 02 Sep 2014 the Small Business Career Field was established by The Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.
The following is a summary of the AT&L Small Business Career Field duties:
• Analyze stakeholder requirements, and advise on small business issues during acquisition planning/strategy development. Provides market research expertise to ensure maximum practicable opportunities for small businesses to
participate in agency procurements.
• Apply statutory and policy procurement-related requirements, as related to small business procurements, support attainment of government socio-economic objectives; conduct market research, acquisition planning, cost and price analysis, solicitation and selection of sources, review of subcontracting plans, small business participation strategies, and past performance.
• Manage an office of small business programs.
• Manage a socioeconomic program (e.g., Women-Owned Small Businesses, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses, Small Disadvantaged Businesses, HUBZone Small Businesses)
• Manages funded program/funded program office (e.g. SBIR/STTR, RIF, MPP).
• Plans and attends small business advocacy events; advises stakeholders on acquisition process, forecasts, and contract requirements.
• Monitor and/or evaluate prime contracting performance and subcontracting plans.
• Perform headquarters-level small business office functions such as workforce development, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), entrepreneurship, industrial base policy development, oversight, and/or Director
Support
The AMCOM Office of the Small Business Programs (OSBP) is responsible for providing leadership and guidance on creating opportunities for small business in the acquisition process, and for protecting and strengthening the defense industrial base. Small business professionals are charged with leading the acquisition workforce to make the best use of small business opportunities by maximizing the contributions of small business in acquisitions and ensuring the technological superiority of the Army.
As Department of the Army strives to meet statutorily mandated small business goals, it has become evident that building the small business workforce and strengthening that workforce with training is a must to improving performance and ensuring proper execution of small business programs. AMCOM requires the small business workforce to maintain measurable proficiency in competency areas. One of the priorities is to develop standardized knowledge, skills and experience requirements for all personnel levels.
A bachelor's degree is required to be certified in the small business career field along with other requirements as one progresses through the career cycle. The competency-based qualification standards provide small business professionals with a understanding of what is expected of them at each level of their career and what is necessary to move forward to the next level. The AMCOM Small Business Professionals have begun their certification process, and the team will be at least Level II certified within 24 months.
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