SBC Sessions

The panel discussion will deep dive into alternative methods for construction delivery currently being employed by industry to build better facilities. A specific focus of the discussion will be on how these methods can be implemented within the bounds of the Federal Acquisition Regulations and other federal guidance.

With increased global cybersecurity concerns, the  Department of Defense has introduced the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) requirement for federal contractors. The framework specifically protects Federal Contract Information and Controlled Unclassified Information. But it also means new requirements that small businesses must know about. Engage with experts to ensure you are prepared to meet the compliance requirement.

In the ever-changing world of federal procurement, it’s tough to keep your mind wrapped around each statutory or regulatory change or agency initiative. This session will provide entrepreneurs with a lens to analyze and understand the shifts in the federal marketplace and stay ahead of the curve.

Did you know federal contracts likely require you to address cybersecurity, physical security, and personnel security? FAR, DFARS, and CMMC regulations are complex. Establishing a compliant operation can seem overwhelming. We’re here to demystify the requirements and help you determine your company’s path forward, including lessons learned from compliant programs.

This session features two A/E Mentor-Protégé Joint Ventures. Panelists will outline the process they followed to establish their Mentor-Protégé, discuss why they pursued a Mentor-Protégé, what being part of a Mentor-Protégé has meant for them, what they look for in a partner, and what advice they have for firms considering an "M-P" path.

Compliance with the Service Contract Act (SCA) is a challenge for many companies. Understanding applicability, wage determinations, health and welfare benefits, and leave requirements can cause major headaches. And non-compliance may lead to a Department of Labor audit. This session will cover SCA compliance principles and discuss strategies for avoiding liability.

Learn how to reduce risk and save money by understanding four key FAR construction clauses that can protect your business from a financial disaster. Understanding these FAR clauses can give you a leg up in project execution and failing to account for them can be a trap for the unwary.

Is your firm ready to start pursuing one of the world’s most lucrative clients: the U.S. government? Learn from one company's successful journey from commercial contractor to securing impressive government contracts. You will get insights into how your firm can apply these lessons learned to begin winning government work and supporting national security needs.

To build your business, you need to build relationships. What does that mean? In this session, you will learn how your efforts and actions go beyond just scheduling a meeting and how various actions you take impact relationship building from a government and industry teaming perspective.

Did you know that during FY2020 large businesses provided over $82.8 billion in federal subcontracting to small business and that large business often must subcontract a certain percentage of their contract to small business? Hear from experts on how to leverage these acquisition requirements to grow your small business.

Bonding is the lifeblood of federal contractors. Attendees will gain an understanding of how good business practices produce accurate and effective WIPs that help any company maximize bonding capacity and be successful as a federal contractor.

This session will present critical information on DOD’s new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) from a lawyer, a prime contractor, and a cybersecurity vendor. You will learn responsibilities between primes and subs for NIST 800-171 and CMMC, legal aspects if companies do not properly complete and comply with CMMC, and how to choose a vendor to successfully achieve compliance.

This session will discuss the internal dynamics of a mentor-protégé relationship from both the small and large business perspective. The presentation will cover lessons learned, challenges, and solutions that can be leveraged when considering or planning to enter into a future mentor-protégé relationship.

Unit price construction cost data is a valuable tool for small businesses; it supports the negotiation of sole source awards and change orders, and forms the foundation of long-term IDIQ contracts that promote industry government partnership. Attend this session to learn about cost data and related contracting options from industry and government experts.

This session is an update on USACE’s Procedures for the TORN Process and other emerging contracting issues.

What qualities make my firm stand out? What types of work should I be pursuing? Take the guesswork out of proposal submission, or at least reduce the risk, by hearing from experienced contracting officers about what they have seen in reviewing hundreds of contracts.

Learn more about timely special interest items related to small business and federal procurement programs, as well as legislative and regulatory updates from a panel of senior government leaders.

Learn how the Department of Veterans Affairs plans, programs, and maintains current cemeteries, the process for constructing new ones, and gain insights on future cemetery programs for small businesses.

This session will feature Insights on energy planning, studies, and information on projects for renewable energy, energy savings support contracts, and other energy-related efforts across the federal government from  USACE, NAVFAC and AFCEC.

This session will focus on contracting opportunities for small businesses with the General Services Administration, featuring insights from the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization.

U.S. federal agencies maintain considerable design, construction, and maintenance programs outside the continental United States. This session will provide information on contracting opportunities in Latin America, Middle East, Europe, and the Pacific.

Health care design is fast becoming a specialized market, with many unique needs. Learn what upcoming federal health A/E services and planning contracting opportunities are available and how to compete for opportunities in this growing sector.

This session will detail upcoming federal healthcare construction opportunities and how businesses can compete for contracts in this specialized market that is expected to continue to grow.  

This session will provide information on how the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Real Property utilizes small businesses for awarding leases, and as contract support for supplementing the Office with professional A/E design, due diligence, and broker services.

Highly qualified A/E firms that DIFFERENTIATE themselves and effectively communicate these differentiators in project submissions and interviews will rise to the top every time. This presentation will summarize effective means for small A/E design firms to differentiate themselves to win more business and set themselves apart with ongoing federal clients.

The U.S. government typically receives multiple proposals for each advertised procurement. This session will address steps to develop differentiators and proposals that are both compliant and compelling. This approach will help you stand out among your competitors and make it easy for the government to select your firm for competitive opportunities.

Everyone knows Scope & Specs drive Price, but crafty Contracting Officers who “think” like contractors always save money. In this session, KOs will learn Tips and Secrets of understanding how Bidders interpret contract wording, measure Risk and determine Price. Sometimes changing one word in a Statement of Work can reduce prices by 10 to 50 percent.

Must small A/E firms submitting SF 330s really need to form a Mentor-Protégé JV to be competitive? This session will share the hard data on the growth in JVs, why DOD agencies like JVs, why it’s so difficult to find a qualified mentor, and lessons learned successful protégés.

The SBA’s Mentor-Protégé Program is a heavily utilized federal tool with over 1,185 active mentor-protégé agreements. Navigating the All-Small Mentor-Protégé application process can be a heavy lift. In this session learn how with the right strategic partner though, it can be a force multiplier for your business.

In this complex and ever-changing world in U.S. government contracting, teaming is an ever-increasing option for firms doing business with the federal government. The panel, composed of experienced Government, Large Business, and Small Business representatives, will discuss the nuances of what can make successful “win-win-win” partnerships from all three perspectives.

New to selling to federal customers? Can’t find the way into the federal marketplace? This session will provide an introduction to the basics of selling and marketing within the federal buying space. Learn to find opportunities and customers, and discover the basics of getting on large and small business prime teams.

Learn about proven planning and actions taken through the pandemic that sustained organization performance and growth. Adapting to constraints of safety challenges and personnel contact, navigating resource constraints, availability of materials, delivery of needed supplies, and cost variation are among the focus areas that apply to your small business.

Operating any business that performs on U.S. government contracts requires knowledge of various regulations and laws regarding labor, financial governance, and contracting. Participants in this panel will develop a solid understanding of the risks and mitigations to successfully perform on government contracts OCONUS.

Positioning your small business for overseas contract opportunities is achievable, and during this facilitated panel session you will hear from small business owners who have successfully positioned their companies for U.S. government contracts overseas.

COVID-19 forced project work to shift quickly from in-person to virtual gatherings. Despite making online meetings work, there are many reasons why we should pivot back to in-person engagements as the pandemic becomes under control. Attend to hear about the importance of reengaging in person and how to do so in a safe and cost-effective way.

Strategic planning for Federal A/E/C contracts is challenging during normal times. The pandemic has required some adjustments to your strategies. How has COVID-19 affected business planning? What does it take to implement a successful post-pandemic federal plan? What's the one thing you could do to address post-pandemic federal client needs?

Before you make any changes to your corporate structure or transition your ownership to others, you must understand small business certifications and regulations on size, certification criteria and how making any change in ownership or control can impact your small business certifications.

Learn what upcoming federal architecture-engineering services and planning contracting opportunities are available and from where they are selected and procured.  This is the first part of the session.

Learn what upcoming federal architecture-engineering services and planning contracting opportunities are available and from where they are selected and procured. This is the second part of the session.

This session will provide Information on facility construction mainly for MILCON projects currently planned or programed for current mission requirements, to include medical facilities as well as major weapon system beddowns.

This session will provide information on federal contracting opportunities for small businesses in the areas of emergency management and response. The presentation will include opportunities related to COVID-19.

This session will provide information on contract opportunities for repair and new construction work on federal horizontal projects currently planned or programed, including airfields, roads, bridges, and Civil Works projects.

This session will include information on contracting opportunities within USACE’s federal hydropower program, including upcoming and future planned contracting opportunities for small businesses.

This session will provide information on upcoming requirements for studies, major programs, and projects in all areas of federal environmental engineering, including remediation, assessments, and compliance.

A diverse group of panelist will briefly describe the do’s, don’ts and maybe’s used to successfully transition into the private sector. Personal experiences will highlight how they negotiated their evolutions while also incorporating a unique perspective designed to assist session participants in delivering on the massive Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act.

An award-winning training-session designed to convince other companies to put you on their teams. This session is designed to accelerate your teaming strategies by three-to-five years with advanced real-world tactics and strategies to differentiate and facilitate competitive advantage within the teaming decision cycle of other companies.

Leadership is a highly sought-after and highly valued commodity. Be the leader you want to follow. This presentation will bring together three unique practitioner-scholar perspectives on leadership. They will discuss transformational, servant, and authentic leadership models and provide practical applications.

Category Management is a great idea, but not as applied to small businesses. This presentation will examine how we can reduce its adverse effects; and what strategies can give small businesses a fighting chance to still win contracts.

The basics of JVs, Teaming & Subcontracts (what they are and how to form them) are well known and readily available. But the keys to steering these strategic relationships toward success and profitability and away from protests, disputes, claims, and compliance problems requires small businesses to level up and learn more.

How can you prove past performance ratings when you are a subcontractor, or you have private-sector corporate clients, or city, county or state clients who cannot use the federal CPARS system? This session will create a solution addressing this huge challenge for companies who want to win prime contracts.

This government and industry panel will present an Executive Summary Presentation of the SAME 
White Paper on Size Standards being submitted to the SBA. The issue of small business graduating 
into the mid-size category is complex. This session will examine why it is a concern for the nation’s 
industrial base and businesses that have grown or evaluating whether to grow out of small 
business size standards.

How important are Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) to your business?  Here is your chance to tell someone! Each business doing business with the Federal Government receives CPARS ratings – some good, some not so good.  But each rating your business receives can make or break your business’ future working with the Government.  As part of an ongoing SAME Industry-Government Engagement project, the project team is working to develop the perspectives of the various Industry and Government organizations within SAME.  This session will not only present the work and perspectives already developed , but more importantly ask the attendees their perspectives through a series of polls and discuss these results in context.  The results of these polls will inform the joint Industry Government team in developing their recommendations for the education and reform of the CPARS system.

 

Get the ‘behind the scenes’ details on SBA Pending Rules  covering HUBZone, WOSB, SB Size (Average Annual Receipt Calculations), 8(a) Mentor-Protégé Program, Small Business Subcontracting Plans and others. This session is applicable to federal agencies, small businesses, and large businesses. Whether you are already doing business with the federal government or thinking about entering this market, you want to understand this changing landscape.
 

This session will focus on contracting opportunities for small businesses with the General Services Administration, featuring insights from leadership within the agency's Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization.
 

This session will present information on overseas construction opportunities through the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations with an emphasis on Embassy projects, and updates on the State Department’s worldwide facilities operations and maintenance requirements.
 

This session will discuss the Air Force’s pending updates to the agency’s environmental impact analysis procedures and program adjustments that have occurred to accommodate new National Environmental Policy Act regulatory guidance promulgated in 2020 and 2021 by the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. It will present desired outcomes, current shortcomings, and requested improvements in the field of environmental impact analysis.
 

Introduction to reorganization of NCO22 and presentation of how our area is arranged and overview of upcoming projects for New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California (San Diego, Greater Los Angeles, Loma Linda and Long Beach) regions.

On September 9, 2021, President Biden issued two Executive Orders requiring federal employees and federal contractor employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Following this, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force issued guidance implementing the EO with respect to federal government contractors, and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council issued a contract clause requiring contractors and subcontractors at any tier to comply with the guidance published by the Task Force. Therefore, covered contractors must immediately be prepared to implement the Task Force Guidance. This expanded version of the presentation summarizes the top takeaways for government contractors and will include a focus on employment law in this rapidly developing area.