Small business division launches new breakfast series.

• Author: Burnside, Chandra
• Position: GOVERNMENT POLICY NOTES

Many members of NDIA these days are taking advantage of a new outreach program sponsored by the association's Small Business Division.

For the past several years, the division has held Small Business Opportunity Breakfasts, where representatives from prime contractors and government agencies can discuss their projects with interested members. In 2005, however, the division's chair and vice chair--Tyrone Taylor, of the West Virginia High Technology Foundation and Ronald Perlman, of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney--realized that their organization had other resources it could offer.

The division's membership, they recognized, has accumulated a wealth of knowledge about small business. Why not provide a forum for division members to share that information with each other?

That idea has grown into a new schedule of programs--the Business Solution Breakfast Series--which strives to educate leaders of small companies on a variety of business related topics.

To date, the topics have included preparing for the purchase or sale of a government contracting business, maximizing banking relationships, establishing employee stock ownership plans, the ins and outs of contract claims and protests, and developing customer relationships in the government-contracting world.

These breakfasts--held several times a year--have featured attorneys from the private and public sectors...