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Lab receives big recognition for small business support

(Download Image) From left: Michelle Quick, LLNL's Small Business Program manager, and Kelly Miller, Supply Chain Management department head, display the FY11 M&O Small Business Achievement of the Year award, with contract administrators Larry LeBel and Becky Ip. Photo by Jacqueline McBride/LLNL

The Laboratory has received the FY11 M&O Small Business Achievement of the Year award from the Department of Energy (DOE). The award, given by the DOE Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, recognizes LLNL's efforts and commitment as a small business advocate that "takes every opportunity to utilize small business concerns to meet its requirements."

Michelle Quick, LLNL's Small Business Program manager, said this is the first such DOE award received by the Lab. She explained it reflects the Lab's achievement of a 2011 NNSA performance goal of 45 percent of total estimated subcontracting efforts toward small businesses. "The Lab actually achieved 62.2 percent, thus surpassing the goal," Quick added.

Quick said that promoting small business benefits everyone, as it is "essential in stimulating the economy."

A small business can also be sub-categorized as a: veteran-owned small business, service-disabled veteran-owned small business, historically underutilized business zone (HUBZone), small disadvantaged business or women-owned business.

In 2011, more than $573 million in Lab procurements were awarded to a diverse group of businesses in California and across the nation, including more than $333 million in procurements to small businesses.

In a letter informing the Lab of the award, LaDoris Harris, director of the Office of Economic Impact & Diversity, noted: "Together we have made significant strides in realigning the mindset to thinking "small business" and not just "big business" when procuring goods and services at DOE." Kelly Miller, Supply Chain Management department head, thanked those whose work led to the achievement of meeting and surpassing the goal, and ultimately, receiving recognition. "I particularly want to extend appreciation to the Lab's contract administrators and TRRs for all their efforts to provide increased subcontracting opportunities to small businesses both at a local level and across the nation," she said.

For FY12, the Lab's overall small business contracting goal is 50 percent of all procurement spent. "We will continue to promote small businesses to the greatest extent possible," Miller said. "Our commitment to supplier diversity is key to the Lab's success." Quick and Miller accepted the award during a ceremony at DOE Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on June 27.

July 13, 2012

Contact

Linda A Lucchetti
[email protected]
925-422-5815