City, small-business advocates offer procurement workshop Thursday – 10/15/2009

Press release from the City of Fort Wayne:

City, small-business advocates offer procurement workshop Thursday
Free session aimed at second-stage business interested in government contracts, contractors

The City of Fort Wayne in cooperation with the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce, Women’s Enterprise – A Program of the Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau, Small Business Administration, SCORE, Community Development Corp. and the Indiana Small Business Development Center will offer a free workshop Thursday, Oct. 15 about local businesses working with government and the defense industry.

The workshop will be 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Omni Room on the second floor of the City-County Building.

The session is aimed at second-stage business owners in a wide range of sectors from lawn mowing to high-tech or individuals who want to learn more about how local businesses work with the government or progress in the local defense industry.

Gil Perry with Partners in Contracting Corp. and the Small Business Development Center and Bruce Stach Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership will be the workshop’s presenters.

Topics to be covered Thursday include:

• Introduction of Gil Perry and the formation of a Procurement Technical Assistance Center here in Fort Wayne, www.piccorp.org
• Overview of current area changes happening in the defense industry and the newly formed “defense cluster”
• Why a business may or may not want to work on government contracts
• Process of getting certified to bid on contracts and resources for training
• Introduction of the General Service Administration catalog and associated opportunities
• Defining contract opportunities with a city, county, state or federal entity
• Sub-contract opportunities with local prime contractors, including the charter members of the NEI Defense Cluster; 122nd Air National Guard, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, ITT, Navistar, Northrop Grumman, Sierra Nevada, Raytheon, and USSI.

The remaining workshop scheduled for 2009 is patents, trademarks and copyright, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 19 in the Omni Room of the City-County Building.