Last week, I attended the ChallengeHER event in Arlington, VA where I had the pleasure of meeting other females in federal contracting. ChallengeHER events, which are organized by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and American Express (AMEX), are designed to supply women business owners with information and resources regarding the SBA’s Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSB) Program in order to provide more federal government contracting opportunities for small businesses owned by women.

One thing was made clear at the event – federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD), are indeed striving to achieve their goals of awarding 5% of their prime contracting dollars to WOSBs. Ms. Amy Kim, the SBA’s WOSB Program Manager, informed attendees that although federal agencies fell just shy of meeting the 5% goal in FY2017, they did award $20.8 Billion contracting dollars to WOSBs. While this number also includes contracting dollars awarded to WOSBs under other SBA socio-economic programs, it was encouraging to learn that FY2017 saw $723.5 Million in WOSB set-aside contract award dollars, which is a 60% increase from FY2016! Several representatives from the DoD discussed how the number of set-aside contract award dollars can continue to increase.
Continue Reading Reminder to Women Owned Businesses – Take Advantage of Federal Contracting Opportunities!

WelcomeOnviaLegalLandscape to the fourth edition of Legal Landscape, a series we have developed with Onvia’s blog to provide government contractors with a quick, but thorough, summary of important legal developments and regulations in government contracting, as well as a plain-English explanation of how those developments may affect contractors at all levels of government. Contractors should keep in mind that state and local agencies often look to changes in federal regulations as a guide for future changes at their respective levels. Changes recently made in the federal arena are likely to trickle down to state and local governments.
Continue Reading Legal Landscape: SBA Expands the WOSB/EDWOSB Contract Program, Importance of the Economic Loss Rule and Self-Reporting Requirement Changes

On March 3, 2016, the SBA announced that it has expanded the list of industries in which a contract can be set-aside for women-owned small businesses (“WOSB”) or economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses (“EDWOSB”). This expansion was mandated last year by section 825 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (“NDAA”), which required numerous changes be made to the SBA’s WOSB/EDWOSB contracting program.


Continue Reading In a Major Win for Women Owned Businesses, SBA Expands WOSB/EDWOSB-Eligible Industry List

You probably already know about set-aside programs offered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), but did you know that provisions in your corporate governance documents could ruin your eligibility for those programs? Ed DeLisle and Maria Panichelli’s new article for Onvia covers critical corporate governance provisions that could

By: Edward T. DeLisle, Gary J. Repke, Jr. & Maria Panichelli

Attention all small business owners!  As a result of a final rule issued by the FAR Council on July 25, requirements for protesting small businesses size and eligibility status are changing effective August 25, 2014.  This rule, which finalizes an interim rule issued

Teaming is a concept much discussed in the world of federal contracting, yet it is often misunderstood.  

On May 7, 2014 Maria L. Panichelli hosted a webinar for Women Impacting Public Policy (“WIPP”) and Give Me 5 (“GM5”) entitled “There’s No “I” In Team – Understanding How to Effectively Team on a Federal Project.” In

We’ve all heard about the “glass ceiling” experienced by women in the workplace. The term “glass ceiling” first appeared in an article published by the Wall Street Journal in 1986 and was used to describe the invisible barriers that women faced as they tried to climb the corporate ladder. While things seem to be better

We recently posted an article discussing changes to the limitations on subcontracting rules for small business federal contractors.  The changes were marshaled in by Congress as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA” or “the Act”), which actually includes a number of other changes affecting small business contractors.  Several of those changes are

By: Edward T. DeLisle & Maria L. Panichelli

Last year, after over a decade of discussion, the Small Business Administration (SBA) finally implemented a federal contracting program specifically designed to assist small businesses owned by women. This program authorizes contracting officers to set aside federal contracts for eligible WOSBs (woman-owned small businesses) and EDWOSBs (economically