Maine APEX Newsletter June 2024

Helping businesses find, win and perform on government contracts • maineapex.com

July 2024 Newsletter

Free Upcoming Webinars

The Maine APEX team hosts free webinars for those interested in learning more about government contracting.

Understanding FOCI: Foreign Ownership, Control, and Influence

07/09/24 • 11:00am

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Understanding Micropurchases

08/08/24 • 11:00am

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Doing Business with the Federal General Services Administration's Public Building Service

08/22/24 • 11:00am

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The SBA's Women Owned Small Business Certification

09/10/24 • 11:00am

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PM’s Corner

A monthly feature from the ME APEX Director

Is Your Business In Need of Funding to Develop A Technology?

If you are a for-profit U.S. based small business with an innovative idea for a new product, service, or technology with commercial potential the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs could be the solution. These programs represent the largest source of early-stage, high-risk technology financing in the United States. Eleven federal agencies participate in this program to provide over $2.5 billion for early stage research and development projects leading to commercialization of resulting products or services.

Often referred to as “America’s Seed Fund”, SBIR and STTR programs are designed to benefit entrepreneurs, inventors, researchers, scientists and small business owners. It assists them to realize their concepts by funding the development of innovative products and services, taking ideas from concept to market. This includes funding research to determine if your idea is even feasible.

If you’d like to learn more I encourage you to explore the SBIR.gov website. If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Maine APEX.

How to Determine if Your Company Qualifies as a Small Business?

Christopher Paradis, Maine APEX Counselor serving Franklin, Androscoggin, and Oxford Counties

Understanding how to make this determination based on SBA’s (U.S. Small Business Administration) official definition of a “small business” is important since meeting the definition can provide a business with greater access to a number of financial related benefits such as loans, government contracts and grants.

The SBA’s definition of “small” considers a number of general and primary factors that include.

The General Factors:
Company must be located and operated in the U.S.
Business must be for-profit and fall within an eligible industry.
Company should be controlled by a U.S. citizen or person with lawful permanent resident status. Business should have sufficient equity to operate on a sound financial basis.

The Primary Factors:
The company’s Average Annual Revenues generated over three years.
The company’s Total Number of Employees.

To meet the classification of a small business, a company must fall under and meet the established size standards for its specific industry. The SBA utilizes the NAICS Industry Codes (North American Industry Classification System) to establish its small business standards which are determined by the two primary factors noted above.

With Maine having a large forestry products industry, and to illustrate this process, please see example below for NAICS Code: 113310 which covers establishments primarily engaged in one or more of the following: (1) cutting timber; (2) cutting and transporting timber; and (3) producing wood chips in the field. (See link to NAICS 113310: https://www.census.gov/naics/?input=113310&year=2022&details=113310

First visit the SBA’s Size Standards Table general information website via link https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
Second, select the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations hot link access to size standards list/table.
Third, look up/find NAICS Code: 113110 in the size standards list/table to view data below.

NAICS Code	NAICS U.S Industry Title	Size Standards in millions of dollars	Size standards in number of employees
113110	Logging	-	500
113110	Forest Nurseries and Gathering of Forest Products	$20.5	-

Based on the current size standards; if your company is in the Logging Industry you would be considered small if you had less than 500 employees with revenue not a factor for consideration whereas; if your company is the Forest Nurseries and Gathering of Forest Products you would be considered small if you had revenue less than $20.5 million with the number of total employees not a factor for consideration. One additional thing to keep in mind is that these size standards can change over time, so it is best practice to revisit them periodically to ensure that your company does still meet the latest published standards to be classified officially as a small business.

I hope that the above information and illustration on how to find and use the SBA’s size standards table will provide you with the means to determine if your company is indeed a small business as classified as small by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Of course, please do not hesitate to contact your Maine APEX Counselor if you should need any additional help or assistance navigating this process. https://www.maineapex.com/connect/locations-contact/

Defense Production Act Title III

Dana Delano, Maine APEX Procurement Counselor Serving Aroostook County

There has been a lot of talk about the Defense Production Act, Title III. It is an Act the Department of Defense has widely promoted to commercial businesses as it is dedicated to ensuring the timely availability of essential domestic industrial resources to support national defense and homeland security requirements. The program works in partnership with the Uniformed services, other government agencies, and industry to identify areas where critical industrial capacity is lagging or non-existent. Once an area is identified, the program engages with domestic companies to mitigate these risks using grants, purchase commitments, loans, or loan guarantees.

The overall mission of the Defense Production Act Title III office is to ensure resilient, robust domestic supply chains in order to reduce reliance on foreign manufacturing and correct domestic shortfalls in the defense industrial base. Major areas of focus include sustaining Material Availability, Reliability, Maintainability, Mobility, and Affordability. Another area includes Commercialized Research & Development Investments to retain a qualitative edge in capabilities and establish commercial viability or scale up.

Nothing can move forward until the President authorizes direct federal involvement with private businesses to address projected shortfalls of essential resources, technology items, or materials. We want to reduce reliance on foreign sources and resources as foreign relationships change over time.

The Defense Production Act Title III awards are funded by a special DPA Fund and are not in the annual budget and these funds do not expire. Opportunities are announced via Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) found in SAM.gov or through the DoD’s Industrial Base Policy Website: https://www.businessdefense.gov/ibr/mceip/dpai/dpat3/index.html

To find opportunities and to learn more about this valuable and strategic program, talk with your APEX counselor. It is what we do!

One Of The Most Useful Contracting Tools

Jessica Crowley, Maine APEX Procurement Counselor serving Washington County

The Dynamic Small Business Search is used by contracting officers everyday all over the United States. The DSBS is a Small Business Administration resource that gathers information from a business’s SAM.gov registration and puts the information into an entity profile. If there is a contracting opportunity in a certain area, the contracting officer can look for qualified firms on the DSBS. If a business bids on a contract, the contracting officer can verify on the DSBS that they are qualified. Sometimes contracting officers will research qualified firms on the DSBS and offer them sole sourced contracts. The DSBS has search features like searching by NAICS codes, Zip Codes, Certifications, UEI, CAGE Code, etc. As a business, you can search who is your competition and who is a potential partner.

As APEX counselors, we help our clients access and update their information on the DSBS. If your business is looking to be a competitor in the government marketplace, making sure your DSBS profile is updated frequently and accurately is important.