Fort Lee, the army post in Prince George County, has gone from a target for closure to what some folks in the area call the logistics capital of the world.
And that growth — the base is receiving a $1.4 billion investment as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act — has led to a surge in federal contracts for nearby small businesses.
“The work local contractors got through Fort Lee has sustained them in some very rough economic times,” said Bud Yerly, Jr., president of the Tri-Cities commercial banking group for SunTrust.
Yerly, who helps manage the bank’s relationships with area small businesses and was previously active in small-business lending for the company, said he has seen very little deterioration in his loan portfolio, even at a time when late payments and charge-offs have climbed nationally.
Yerly and other small-business experts gathered at Virginia State University Thursday to spread the word and help train a new wave of small businesses in the mechanics of winning federal contracts.
The event was a joint effort by the Small Business Administration, the Crater Small Business Development Center and Virginia’s Gateway Region, an economic development organization for Southside that is funded with both public and private money.
Federal contract rules require agencies to “set aside,” whenever possible, certain contracts for small-business bids. Federal contracting officers must also divide large purchase orders into smaller “lots,” giving small businesses a chance to participate and bid on projects that would otherwise be too large for them to handle.
Virginia receives the second-largest amount of federal contracting dollars for any state, trailing only Texas. James Williams, the SBA’s lead business development specialist for the Richmond district, said training events benefit both the companies and the agencies.
“We want to help the agencies by making sure the small businesses are educated and able to work through the contracting process,” he said. “And there is also a process to make sure businesses know how to market themselves to the agencies, how to let them know you’re here.”
Since the event was held one day before Veterans Day, there was a particular emphasis on set-asides for businesses owned by veterans, including those who have service-related disabilities or injuries. But the event also covered contracting rules for women-owned small businesses and companies located in “historically underutilized business zones.”
Tony Gattuso, the president and owner of Energy-Tel, was using the seminars to look into winning federal contracts. His company, which does telecom and energy consulting across the mid-Atlantic, has done work for the state government but hasn’t yet tried to break into the federal market.
Emily Salmon, business development manager for Virginia’s Gateway Region, said the group wants to support Fort Lee and its business. She noted that the growing number of troops on base often have “trailing spouses,” military parlance for a husband or wife who moved to the area with a soldier. Many of those spouses are, or aspire to be, small-business owners.
“And a lot of veterans who are posted here come back to retire here,” Salmon noted. “We would love to keep them in the area.”
For Tuffy Neilson, who owns several Tuffy Auto Service shops in the area, the federal government offers a chance to diversify his business and grow beyond his traditional retail clientele.
“I’m trying to get oriented and see how we can get involved,” he said.
After a round of speeches and workshops in the morning, businesses spent the afternoon doing “matchmaking” sessions with contracting officers from more than a dozen federal agencies, including the Defense Logistics Agency, General Services Administration, Department of Education and Department of Veterans Affairs.