DoD commits to disabled veterans’ businesses

WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials are committed to providing service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses with contracting opportunities, and are closer to its goal of awarding 3 percent of department contracts to such businesses, the acting director for the Pentagon’s Small Business Programs Office said July 15.

The department has seen a steady increase in its annual contract awards to such businesses since 2003, when $300,000 was awarded to disabled-veteran-owned small businesses, Linda B. Oliver said before the House Small Business Committee.

In 2009, $4.3 billion in contracts was awarded to disabled-veteran-owned small businesses.

“We are proud of this progress, one that shows a 14-fold increase,” Oliver said in her written testimony, which also noted the number of contracts awarded also has increased. “It is good for (veterans) when the percentages are increasing in an upward trend and also when the total dollars are increasing at an even faster pace.

“While these trends are positive and encouraging, we cannot and will not relax our efforts until we achieve the government-wide goal of 3 percent,” she continued.

Also, the number of firms awarded defense contracts has steadily increased from 751 in 2003 to more than 3,000 in 2009. Of the $7.4 billion appropriated to the Defense Department in Recovery Act funds, $157 million was awarded and being worked by disabled-veteran small businesses, she said.

Oliver said she credits the Pentagon’s Mentor-Prot