Command marks week with educational events targeting area firms and base personnel

NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — For Lorraine Rardin, the Navy’s support of small companies is about more than just boosting the local economy — it’s smart business.

Rardin, who was hired in October 2013, is the newest member of Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP), an organization that helps marry small businesses’ products and services with the Department of the Navy’s mission and needs.

The Navy is increasingly looking to small businesses to help meet its “three pillars of acquisition, which are cost, schedule and performance,” Rardin said. “Unburdened by the bureaucracy some prime contractors contend with, small businesses can provide a high level of innovation, speed to the fleet and affordability. They can respond quickly to requirements and their cost is usually less.”

OSBP plans to use National Small Business Week, May 12-16, as an opportunity to increase awareness, provide timely education and give small businesses the chance to interface with NAVAIR leadership.

Small and large businesses are invited to a Small Business Roundtable at 8 a.m. May 16 at the Engility Corp. conference room in Lexington Park, Md. This event will feature presentations from NAVAIR leaders about the command’s initiatives, goals and objectives for 2014. Advanced registration for this event is required by visiting http://www.sbroundtable.com/NAVAIR/events/.

Education efforts for Department of the Navy personnel include two brown bag lunch events sponsored by the OSBP and the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Office. Both events are aimed at increasing awareness of small-business programs, promoting understanding of the OSBP versus the SBIR Office, and providing answers to questions for the base’s technical community. The brown bags will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. May 14 in Building 2185, Room 3200; and May 15 in Building 2109, Room 1250.

In addition, the Program Management (AIR-1.0) organization will sponsor another brown bag question and answer session titled “Small Business Overview and Small Business Utilization Evaluation in [Contractor Performance Assessment Reports System]” from 12-1 p.m. May 20 in the Rear Adm. William A. Moffett Building 2272, Conference Room 354.13. The brown bag events will provide insights to help identify the best mix of small business support to meet naval acquisition program requirements.

“There is a lot of interest from small businesses in what we procure here at Naval Air Station Patuxent River and what our requirements are, so they can respond to our request for proposals,” Rardin said. “My primary concern is that we increase opportunities for small businesses to provide the warfighter with creative, affordable solutions.”

In the past two years, NAVAIR has awarded more than $3.3 billion in contracts to small businesses.

“Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, and we are seeing a lot of that innovation coming from small businesses,” Rardin said. “It’s exciting to see what small businesses are doing. They are providing engineering services, support activities for air transportation, custom computer programming and aircraft parts and auxiliary equipment manufacturing to name a few areas within the [Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division] at Pax.”

Rardin and her teammates are working on training contract specialists as well as the technical community in what she calls “Small Business 101,” as well as educating them on small business from an acquisition perspective.

“It’s been exciting because I think education is the key to empowering people to make different decisions,” Rardin said. “Often, it’s not so much a reluctance to go to small business; it’s not knowing how to start that process.”

Rardin worked in NAVAIR’s Contracts community before transitioning to Small Business. She said she uses that experience to integrate both the contract side and the policy, procedure and regulation side that guides small-business programs.

“People understand the need to meet our small-business goals,” Rardin said. “They just didn’t understand the part that they play in getting there. Through the education and outreach pieces of what we do, we’re letting the NAVAIR community know how they can help.”

For more information about NAVAIR’s Small Business programs, visit www.navair.navy.mil/osbp; call 301-757-9083.