Specialized Government Personnel

April 13, 2006

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There are several types of government employees whose main job is to help you do business with the government.

Small Business Specialists (SBS): By law, every government buying location must have a Small Business Specialist to work with small businesses trying to do business with that office. Major government buying offices have a full-time staff, while smaller offices have a part-time person assigned to that task. These specialists can be a valuable resource for you on the inside. Get to know them.
Competition Advocate: This individual is assigned at a high management level at major buying offices and is responsible for promoting the acquisition of commercial items and for promoting full and open competition. To that end, Competition Advocates challenge barriers to the acquisition of commercial items and to full and open competition, such as unnecessarily restrictive statements of work, unnecessarily detailed specifications, and unnecessarily burdensome contract clauses. They also look at requirements for a specific item to see what can be done to expand competition for the item, challenging any requirements that are not stated in terms of required performance or essential physical characteristics.
SBA Procurement Center Representative (PCR): Procurement Center Representatives work for the Small Business Administration, but are often located at a major government buying office. Their job is to identify items and services that could be produced or provided by small businesses and try to get them "set aside" for small businesses (i.e., only small businesses can bid on them). If the buying office is small, the PCR may work out of an SBA District office and travel to the buying office.
SBA Commercial Marketing Representative (CMR): Commercial Marketing Representatives monitor the performance of large companies under their large government contracts and can help you get subcontract work from large prime contractors.