WASHINGTON - Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro chaired a roundtable with major buying commands, small business managers, contracting officers and senior leadership to discuss the Department of the Navy's Office of Small Business Programs' (OSBP) acquisition priorities and opportunities, July 13.
OSBP's mission is to create a culture of small business inclusiveness across the Navy, to not only best support its mission, Sailors, and Marines, but to ensure fiscal responsibility with taxpayer dollars. OSBP supports President Biden's economic strategy for "small business owners to help lower the cost and level the playing field for families and small businesses."
"Through forums like this, the buyers, purchasers, and contractors collaborate to remove barriers and bring advances through small business opportunities," said Del Toro. "The Department has the opportunity and obligation to impact and leverage small businesses on a federal level. We have to remember that this is both transformative for the business, their communities, and our Navy and Marine Corps."
The federal government's Small Business Administration (SBA) works with federal agencies to award at least 23% of all prime government contracting dollars each year to small businesses that are certified with the SBA's contracting programs. Some of these programs include Service Disabled Veteran-Owned small businesses (SDVOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small businesses, Small Disadvantaged businesses (SDB) and Women-Owned small businesses (WOSB).
Historically, during World War II and the Korean War, Congress identified thousands of small business concerns due to war-induced shortages of materials and the inability to break into major defense contracts. President Eisenhower signed the Small Business Act into law, which created the SBA. The priority of this law was to 'preserve free competitive enterprise' and fairly award federal contracts among small and large businesses.
