July 21, 2020
Big Opportunities for Small Businesses
Pine leads virtual town hall on military and federal contracting
WHAT: About $1 billion in military and federal contracts are available in Hawai‘i each year and a percentage is always set aside for local small businesses. Councilmember Kym Pine’s guests will talk about how local companies can strengthen their business base and recover from the pandemic by accessing this new-to-them revenue source.
WHY: To support small businesses and actively diversify the economy as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
WHEN: 1 p.m. Thursday, July 23
WHERE: Online, wherever you are.
HOW:
To attend the Zoom event, register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JplCWIEyTlO91HR4yJGTPA
Via Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/Kymberly.Marcos.Pine/
Federal spending in Hawai‘i totals more than $20 billion annually and more than 600 local businesses benefited from $1.3 billion of those dollars.
In 2019, of that revenue, $780 million were used for construction and engineering, providing
11,000 jobs. Some $208 million were spent on ship repair, providing 2,100 jobs. Support services provided 2,500 jobs that were supported by $117 million.
Councilmember Pine’s guests are experts in the field of military and federal contracting at the local level.
John Greene, retired after a 27-year military career, is the state’s Defense Industry Specialist for the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism. He previously was the Director of the Hawaii Procurement Technical Assistance Center, or P-TAC, from 2013 to 2019. Its primary goal was to help all small businesses with federal contracting, which included getting them certified as 8-A; Women-Owned, HUB-Zone, and Service-Disabled-Veteran-Owned.
Ron Jarrett is the founder of the first Native Hawaiian-Owned organization certified to do business under the SBA 8a program, Nā ‘Ōiwi Kāne. Businesses he leads, generate revenue to support the nonprofit, which serves underprivileged Native Hawaiian youth across the islands. As a business owner who has attained certification, he will share his experiences in obtaining the certification and gaining contracts, as well as the positive impacts these activities have had on his businesses and the nonprofit.
Dr. Dana Hauanio is Director of the MBDA Business Center Honolulu (MBCH), located at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. She manages a team of consultants that provide technical assistance to local, minority-owned businesses and during her tenure, MBCH has assisted more than 1,000 minority-owned businesses, in providing almost $2 billion of economic activity. Her team has received the U.S. Department of Commerce’s MBDA Century Award for outstanding performance for the last eight years. Further, UH was recently award the MBDA CARES Act Project, which she will discuss.
Host: Councilmember Kym Pine
*Questions from the audience will be accepted via the chat function.
Councilmember Kym Pine represents residents of District One (ʻEwa, ʻEwa Beach, Kapolei, Honokai Hale, Ko ʻOlina, Nānākuli, Mā‘ili, Wai‘anae, Mākaha, Kea‘au, Mākua) and is chair of the City Council’s Committee on Business Economic Development and Tourism.
Media Contact:
Erika Engle
erika [dot] engle honolulu [dot] gov
