Below is a nice article from NOLA.com (The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate) outlining some of the successes Louisiana small businesses have had in the government market post-Katrina. The article mentions our friends at the The Louisiana Procurement Technical Assistance Center.
If Hurricane Katrina hadn’t hit Louisiana and damaged much of New Orleans, Pontchartrain Partners, a minority-owned construction services business, might not exist.
The reconstruction effort after the storm in 2005 brought together Danny Blanks, Bart Cook and James R. Washington III as business partners as the federal government prepared to spend $14 billion to rebuild New Orleans after Katrina.
Blanks, CEO of Pontchartrain Partners, previously worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in St. Bernard Parish in the mid-2000s.
Pontchartrain Partners was created in 2009 and has grown to more than 100 employees, at first working as a subcontractor for larger companies on federal contracts. The company has since opted to bid for work as a prime contractor as a growth strategy, especially for professional services on construction projects, and is among the hundreds of small businesses in Louisiana awarded nearly $2.8 billion in federal contracts during fiscal 2018.
Certifications such as woman-, veteran- and minority-owned businesses sometimes enable companies to be awarded sole source contracts, plus there are other programs such as the 8a business development program for small disadvantaged businesses offered through the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The Small Business Administration keeps track of federal government contracting because there are yearly goals for different categories of businesses, such as minority- or woman-owned.
There are local resources to enable small-business owners to get certified and facilitate contracts with the federal government. The Louisiana Procurement Technical Assistance Center has staff dedicated to several regions across the state. More than $8.6 billion in government contracts have been awarded to clients of the Louisiana procurement assistance office since its inception.
Continue reading at: NOLA.com
