Pollution Engineering - October 2008 - (Page 20)

PUBLISHER'SPAGE The Thanks of a Grateful Nation Thanks to a little-known condition in the 1998 Small Business Act, businesses owned by a veteran, particularly one who was disabled in the line of duty, can get special consideration for government contracts. n the closing days of the Vietnam War, 75,000 Army personnel and their instruments of warfare, including 225 aircraft, were evacuated to an airfield in Oahu, Hawaii. Capt. Arthur N. Mabbett was placed in charge of the development and implementation of the Army’s Hawaiian environmental program, and in 1974 the U.S. Army in Hawaii, under Mabbett’s leadership, received a special award from the Secretary of the Army for their environmental program. I There has been a lot of criticism of our federal government’s treatment of veterans, but not all the news is bad. Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Mabbett while attending Zweig White’s Environmental Industry Summit in San Diego. Mabbett gave a presentation on veteran-owned small businesses (VOSBs), and a further classification of service-disabled (SD-) VOSBs. As a service-disabled veteran, he started Mabbett & Associates in 1980. His company became an SDVOSB in 2005 after creation of that classification with the passage of the Small Business Act of 1999 and a 2004 executive order by President Bush to give SDVOSBs even greater consideration. Very few know the SDVOSB classification exists. The more popular minority-owned, woman-owned and 8-A economically disadvantaged small business classifications are widely known, but according to Mabbett, approximately 30 SDVOSBs exist nationally in the environmental consulting and engineering sector alone. He said that finding out about SDVOSBs and becoming certified as one has substantially changed his business. Before becoming an SDVOSB, Mabbett and Associates did roughly 2 percent of their business with the federal government. Today, more than 30 percent comes from federal and other public sources, and it’s growing. Mabbett attributes this increase over the past few years to his firm’s SDVOSB classification. “ ” The benefits of being an SDVOSB or VOSB are tangible. In a page that Mabbett provided to me entitled Veterans First Contracting Program, there are a number of gems that read quite well. For example, here’s a fragment that should make service-disabled veterans happy: “…contracting officers may use procedures other than competitive (including sole source awards)…to make awards to service-disabled veteranowned small businesses and veteran-owned small businesses.” These contracts may be awarded by a federal contracting officer up to $5 million. If there is more than one SDVOSB firm qualified to compete for the same contract, there is another provision that states that the contracting officer “…shall award contracts on the basis of competition restricted to SDVOSB or VOSB….” This is commonly referred to as a “set-aside option.” There has been a lot of criticism of our federal government’s treatment of veterans, but not all the news is bad. This program is well intended and well deserved for those veterans who are fortunate enough to own a small business. It gives priority treatment to those who have served our country and it also provides preferential treatment of disabled veterans over non-disabled veterans. If you are interested in learning more about SDVOSBs or VOSBs, this link is a good place to start: www.fedgovcontracts.com/pe04-73.htm. Or you can contact your local Small Business Administration or Veteran’s Affairs Office. PE Doug Glenn is the publisher of Pollution Engineering. Do Doug Glenn is Publisher of Pollution Engineering. P He can be contacted at do doug@pollutionengineering.com 20 Pollution Engineering OCTOBER2008 http://www.fedgovcontracts.com/pe04-73.htm

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pollution Engineering - October 2008

Pollution Engineering - October 2008 Contents The Editor’s Desk EnviroNews PE Events Legal Lookout Green Connections Clearing the Air Water for People There’s a New Show in Town Catching Wind for Clean Water Taking the Pressure off Blower Selection Pulsed Plasma Positive Redundancy Product Focus: Municipal Water Treatment Product Focus: Monitoring Equipment PE Products Classified Marketplace Advertisers Index State Rules

Pollution Engineering - October 2008

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