Small Business Administration and Veterans Groups Unite

SBA and Veterans Groups Unite to Conduct First-Ever Live Outreach Webcast Training for Veteran Business Owners 

For the first-time ever, Veteran-owned small business owners will be able to participate in a live interactive webcast that will provide training and raise awareness of federal contract assistance for Veteran and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned businesses offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The four-hour live webcast will take place on Dec. 14, 2005, at 1:00 p.m. EST and is one of a series of training sessions for veteran-owned businesses that will take place around the country.  Subsequent training courses will be announced at a later date.

“We are excited about this opportunity to partner with the Veterans Task Force and USVets.TV to help educate the veteran community on a variety of topics including how to start their own business and navigating the federal contracting arena,” said SBA Administrator Hector V. Barreto.  “This initiative is in accordance with the President’s Executive Order to help the
courageous men and women who served this country honorably gain access to contracting opportunities in the federal marketplace.”…

Individuals planning to participate in the live webcast, should visit http://www.usvets.tv or http://www.tvworldwide.com on Dec. 14, at 12:45 p.m. EST and have the free Windows Media Player installed prior to the event.  The webcast will be archived for later viewing for a full year.  DVD and CD-ROM copies will also be made available to interested Veteran and Service-Disabled
Veteran-owned businesses.

The webcast, which will be produced by George T. Brown Associates, Inc., a service-disabled veteran-owned business, will feature interactive discussions with Teresa Lewis, SBA assistant administrator for the Office of Federal Contract Assistance for Veteran Business Owners, William Elmore, associate administrator for the Office of Veterans Business Development, representatives from the Task Force for Veterans Entrepreneurship and other speakers and
panelists.  During the webcast, veterans will be able to e-mail their questions directly to the participants and get immediate responses.

The webcast will also highlight:

    * How to market to the federal government (Central Contractor Registration
      and business plans);

    * How to get on the General Services Administration’s Federal Supply
      Schedule;

    * How to establish a teaming arrangement (joint venture agreements,
      subcontracting agreements and mentor protege agreements);

    * How to finance your business (start-up capital, loans, SBA loan
      guarantees, bank loans, budgeting, capital for growth and expansion);

    * Methods for forecasting contracting opportunities; and

    * How to successfully get contract opportunities.

The SBA recently held a live Web chat with Jessica Salanis, director of the Veterans Business Outreach Center at the University of Texas-Pan American and Mark Lano, a veteran business owner to share insightful information on veterans business development as it relates to federal contracting and tools and resources available to support the success of veteran-owned small
businesses.

The chat also engaged business owners in a national dialogue on assistance available for self-employed veterans, including Reserve and National Guard member small business owners and allowed Web chat participants to get information on veterans business assistance from the SBA.  To view the transcript of the chat, visit http://www.sba.gov/chats.  For more information
on how to receive veterans business assistance from the SBA, visit http://www.sba.gov/gc/indexprograms-vets.html.

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