JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas (Oct. 5, 2020) -- Mission and Installation Contracting Command small business professionals from across the nation teamed to exceed contracting goals across all socioeconomic categories for the sixth consecutive year.
The MICC awarded more than 21,300 contract actions totaling $2.67 billion to American small businesses in fiscal 2020, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation. The MICC exceeded its 45% small business goal toward total small business eligible award dollars by achieving 53.47%.
Mark Massie, the assistant director of the MICC Office of Small Business Programs, attributes the continued success to his team of small business professionals working closely with contracting officers and acquisition leaders in advocacy of small businesses achieving maximum opportunity to compete for Army contracts.
“We have a great group of small business professionals at the MICC, and they make a significant impact on the MICC, Army Materiel Command and Army small business goals,” Massie said. “Through their early involvement helping to shape the best possible acquisition strategy, ensuring compliance with small business policy and regulations, participation in pre- and post-award activities, providing outreach to ensure transparency to small business concerns and providing training to our contracting staff, we have again exceeded our small business goals for the sixth consecutive year.”
Nancy Small, the director for small business programs at Army Contracting Command, thanked the MICC leadership and its small business team “for a super fantastic year and contributing significantly to AMC meeting its goals for the sixth year in a row … (in) support of America’s national industrial base.”
Massie added the MICC goal achievement represents more than 19% of AMC’s total small business spend and more than 11% of the Army’s total small business spend.
The Army’s contributions to the small business industry are just part of the federal government’s overall efforts to support the small business industry upon which the economy relies. With six weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced in August that the federal government had already exceed it small business contracting goal, awarding 26.5%, or $132.9 billion, in federal contract dollars to small businesses.
MICC small business professionals continuously build upon the pool of potential contractors through a variety of engagements strategies. Among those are advance planning briefings to industry during which potential contractors have an opportunity to hear from installation leaders and contracting officials as well as representatives from the SBA and local procurement technical assistance centers. These events also permit the chance to meet with contracting professionals and networking opportunities with other businesses for teaming prospects.
The federal government’s response to the outbreak of coronavirus in early spring and the Army’s ensuing efforts to prevent the spread ceased the MICC’s ability to meet one on one with small business representatives. Massie and his team overcame the challenges posed by the pandemic by continuing to engage small business through a virtual platform.
“Due to COVID-19, we had to act quickly. During a two-month span the MICC was able to plan and execute four very successful virtual advance planning briefings to industry,” he said. “One of the most significant benefits we discovered from our virtual events was the number of small business vendors we were able to reach.”
The four events drew the participation of more than 800 small business representatives.
“Small businesses have limited resources so they must pick and choose where to spend those valuable resources,” Massie explained. “With a virtual event, it doesn’t cost a small business anything but time to join the event and obtain information on upcoming requirements.”
Feedback from the virtual events was overwhelmingly positive, garnering a 90% satisfaction rating that industry would attend another virtual event in the future. Massie said his small business team weighs any feedback in its efforts to improve upon events as well as its goal to increase the detail of requirements presented and remain as transparent as possible in order to increase competition and the Defense industrial base.
Despite the change in platform, he said small businesses were prepared and ready to step up to meet the challenges presented by COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, the MICC awarded more than 60% of all dollars for COVID-19 requirements to small businesses. Massie intends to carry the virtual event structure forward into fiscal 2021 and is currently developing a command-wide advanced planning briefing to industry for the spring.
About the MICC:
Headquartered at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the Mission and Installation Contracting Command consists of about 1,500 military and civilian members who are responsible for contracting goods and services in support of Soldiers as well as readying trained contracting units for the operating force and contingency environment when called upon. As part of its mission, MICC contracts are vital in feeding more than 200,000 Soldiers every day, providing many daily base operations support services at installations, facilitate training in the preparation of more than 100,000 conventional force members annually, training more than 500,000 students each year, and maintaining more than 14.4 million acres of land and 170,000 structures.
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