Author Archives: Shane McCall

SmallGovCon Week in Review, November 6-10, 2023, A Salute to Our Veterans!

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Tomorrow is Veterans Day and SmallGovCon would like to thank our veterans for their service.

Here are some interesting historical facts about Veterans Day. It was on November 11, 1921, an unidentified American soldier killed in the war was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The US Department of Veterans Affairs holds a ceremony each year in Arlington National cemetery, to honor and thank all who served in the US Armed Forces. The first celebration using the term Veterans Day occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947. You can read more about the history of Veterans Day here.

If you are not a veteran, please reach out and take a moment to thank those veterans in your life. We hope you will consider attending a Veterans Day event in your area to thank them for their service and honor their sacrifice.

And now, this week in federal government contracting news included a new contracting initative, increased use of AI, and cyber security updates.

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Event: Encountering Innovation Conference hosted by Kansas APEX Accelerators, Nov. 13-17, 2023, Johnson County Community College

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Encountering Innovation has quickly become one of the top US Pitch Events for Innovators/Inventors to present and showcase their technology to US Government Tech Scouts for special funding.  Tech Scouts from the Department of Defense, Service Labs, Academia, and most US government agencies prioritize attending this week-long event to listen to pitches, examine poster board displays, discuss government needs, and chat with innovators from 8+ states during lunches and evening networking events. 

Our very own, Nicole Pottroff, will be presenting at this conference on teaming agreements, November 14. Please join her for this informative presentation.

Also, DoD Tech Scouts and Prime Contractors will be looking for innovation and manufacturing capability solutions through intentional matched private pitch sessions. Register and find out more about this conference here.

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2023 Bid Protest Report, Success Rate Up, Total Protests Up a Little Bit

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One of our favorite fall traditions is back. No, not gorging on stuffing after a turkey trot. Rather, it’s time for GAO’s annual bid protest report. This report is GAO’s summary of bid protests for the previous fiscal year. It contains some key insights for how the protest numbers have changed from prior years.

Here are some key points from this year: (1) the key effectiveness metric, showing numbers of sustains and corrective actions at GAO, was up even higher to 57% for the 2023 fiscal year and (2) total bid protest numbers are up slightly, reversing a downward trend in total protest numbers from the last few years.

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SmallGovCon Week in Review: Oct. 30-Nov. 3, 2023

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Happy Friday and welcome to November!

In honor of National Veterans’ Small Business Week, Administrator Isabel Guzman, head of the  SBA, hosted a roundtable with the Veteran Institute for Procurement (VIP) to discuss the Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) Program. The SBA has certified over 8,300 new veteran- and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses through VetCert so far. Also, in federal government contracting news, there was an executive order released on how the government can address AI in government. You can read more about these, as well as other newsworthy articles below. Have a great weekend!

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Event Announcement: APTAC’s 2023 Fall Training Conference

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Nicole Pottroff and I are excited to attend the Fall APTAC conference in Washington DC and will be presenting on legal updates on November 6. The conference gives agencies and primes the opportunity to promote supplier diversity programs and learn how the APEX Accelerators can partner and assist in meeting contracting goals.

The Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC) is the professional organization of and for the DoD APEX Accelerators nationwide. APTAC supports the APEX Accelerators by providing important information, professional networking, comprehensive training and a voice in national government contracting assistance. They are a great resource for obtaining helpful information for federal government contractors. We certainly enjoy the opportunity to present throughout the year for this beneficial organization.

If you are attending, please stop by our table to say hello. Hope to see you there!

SmallGovCon Week in Review: October 23-27, 2023

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Happy Friday and happy Halloween! Nicole Pottroff enjoyed presenting at the recent ICBSSHOW this week and enjoyed talking to many of our readers. But it’s also the last weekend to prepare and to stock up on candy for those trick or treaters. Hope the federal contracting stories from this week aren’t too scary.

This week in federal government contracting news, the Office of Management and Budget is setting a goal of awarding 13% of federal contract spending to “small, disadvantaged businesses” for fiscal 2024 and the SBA kicks off National Veterans Small Business Week, October 30-November 3, with lots of events taking place across the country. You can read more about these announcements and more in the articles below. Have a great weekend and have fun carving those pumpkins!

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FAR Updates: Size Protests for Orders, Rules for 8(a) Follow-On Contracts

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The FAR Council has released updates that will impact a couple aspects of small business contracting. One is that contractors can now file size and socioeconomic status protests for certain types of orders, under strict timelines. Second is that agencies must notify SBA when they seek to remove certain contracts from the 8(a) Program. While these rules were present in some form in SBA rules, they are now firmly ensconced in the Federal Acquisition Regulation as well. Below, I discuss the highlights of these rules as well as any differences from the SBA rules.

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