DLA conference reaches out to small businesses

“We need all the suppliers we can get — we’re only as good as our suppliers,” said Milton Lewis, executive director of Contracting and Acquisition Management at Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime.

Lewis addressed a crowd of about 150 vendors invited to DLA Land and Maritime, in Colombus, Ohio, Oct. 19-20 for a small business Training-Knowledge-Opportunities Seminar focused on service-disabled veteran-owned small business suppliers. To receive designation as a SDVOSB, a company must be a domestic small business at least 51 percent owned and controlled by one or more service-disabled veterans.

The TKO session is part of DLA Land and Maritime’s continued efforts to reach out to small-business owners to help them in earning a fair share of government contracting opportunities.

Lewis told the group that DLA Land and Maritime manages more than 2 million items of DLA’s 5 million parts and that “any day we can get a request for any one of those parts.”

“What we need is an agile supply chain. You should come in this business with your eyes open — it’s different,” Lewis told the vendors, who were briefed on a variety of topics chosen to help them through the acquisition process.

Subject matter experts on the DLA Internet Bid Board System, radio frequency identification devices and C-Folders, as well as a number of other topics, presented information to the government contractor audience.

In planning the conference, the Land and Maritime Small Business Office staff reached out to SDVOSBs who were new or had done limited business with DLA.

One attendee remarked that he found it informative to come to such conferences and talk with other suppliers.

Another, Jim Dyle of Coordinated Defense Supply Systems Inc., said he thought the conference was the best he’s ever attended.

“Nobody knows how everything works,” Dyle said. “It wasn’t like some of these ‘rah-rah’ sessions where you don’t really get enough information.”

On the second day of the conference, Scott Denniston, a SDVOSB advocate and executive director of the National Veteran Small Business Coalition, presented information on vendors doing their part for SDVOSBs.

“DLA has an obligation to support veteran small businesses because [the Department of Defense] makes veterans,” said the former director of small business with the Department of Veteran Affairs small business. “Because of their education, teamwork and perseverance, veterans make great business partners. Persevere and don’t quit. The federal market is hard to break into, but you can be successful.

“And always think from the buyers’ perspective — it’s about supporting the warfighter,” said Denniston, who was scheduled to speak to Land and Maritime supply chain associates oct. 21 followed by capability briefings by two SDVOSBs from the manufacturing arena.

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By Tony D’Elia