By: Rhett Buttle
Through pandemic recovery, workforce shortages, and supply chain disruptions, small businesses have shown an immense amount of grit over these last few years. The Biden-Harris Administration remains focused on helping Main Street in a number of ways, including offering resources and tools to small businesses nationwide like those offered by the General Services Administration (GSA).
As Associate Administrator and Director for the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at the General Services Administration (GSA), Exodie C. Roe III has spent his career advocating for resources and tools to support small businesses and entrepreneurs. Through his commitment to small businesses, Associate Administrator Roe has encouraged small businesses owners and entrepreneurs to compete for government contracts and learn about procurement opportunities, as well as develop training to support entrepreneurs at every stage.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Associate Administrator Roe about his experience in the role, the resources that the GSA has for small businesses of all kinds, and his goals for an accessible future for Main Street.
Below is our conversation, edited for clarity.
Rhett Buttle: You are coming up on three years as the Associate Administrator and Director for the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at GSA. What are some of your proudest accomplishments to date?
Associate Administrator Exodie C. Roe III: GSA is the premier civilian acquisition agency and the largest real estate landlord in the United States with nearly 12,000 employees. As an Associate Administrator at GSA and a leader in federal procurement and small business contracting, I’m proud to mention GSA earned an A+ on the SBA Small Business Procurement Scorecard for FY2022. This demonstrates GSA’s commitment and support for the small business community. In FY22, GSA obligated over 47% of the agency’s eligible spend, representing more than $2.8 billion. All the hard work from the acquisition workforce and dedication from agency leadership has yielded exceptional results.
As the Chair of the 2022-2023 Federal Office of Small And Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) Directors Interagency Council, we have strengthened our partnerships with internal and external stakeholders. Under my leadership, the GSA OSDBU team has a higher national profile, executed a historic national small business training event focused on the Administration’s equity in procurement initiatives with record attendance (2,250) in FY21, and now is in its third year. This event provides matchmaking opportunities for small businesses and training on how to do business with the federal government.
We’ve also fully automated the Small Business Goaling Dashboard. Over the last two and a half years, GSA’s small business office has really ramped up our outreach and engagement with industry and we have more training and resources available to small and small disadvantaged businesses than ever before at GSA.gov/smallbusiness.
We have also developed and enhanced the Forecast of Contracting Opportunities Tool and onboarded other federal agencies so that they can share their contract opportunities. Small businesses can now learn about upcoming contract opportunities earlier, which affords them additional time to plan and determine which opportunities they’d like to pursue; allowing them to be more competitive.
I actively assist the GSA initiative to support the President’s Executive Order on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs). My department has supported HBCU-focused industry days, and engaged in roundtables around advancing HBCUs partnerships with the federal government.
Rhett Buttle: You work with small and disadvantaged businesses on a daily basis. What types of resources can the GSA offer businesses?
Associate Administrator Exodie C. Roe III: We put small and small disadvantaged businesses at the forefront of our outreach efforts and make sure we listen to them about some of the challenges they face while navigating the world of government contracts.
We provide guides and informational videos on small business subcontracting, getting a GSA schedule contract, doing business with GSA, and other topics to help new entrants who are looking to do business with our agency or our customer agencies for the first time.
Our entire office is a resource to small businesses. The Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) is a staff of professionals dedicated to promoting small business in procurement. Our staff offers counseling, training, and networking opportunities around the country.
Our Small Business Specialists across the country in all 11 regions are key resources to supporting OSDBU’s mission by maximizing small business participation, and connecting small businesses to key contracting and small business experts. They’re a valuable resource for training, education, and other help to successfully navigate the federal marketplace. Our small business specialists also negotiate aggressive subcontracting goals to ensure large businesses holding GSA prime contracts offer significant subcontracting opportunities for all types of small businesses.
GSA signed an agreement with SBA to create a new pool dedicated to 8(a) small businesses on GSA Federal Supply Schedules. By using these Schedules, federal agencies can buy nearly all the common products and services to meet their missions and do that while also meeting the President’s ambitious small disadvantaged business goals. We currently have nearly 800 contractors onboard, and that number is growing as we actively work with SBA to recruit new vendors.
Rhett Buttle: Oftentimes, business owners struggle with procurement. How does the GSA work to create an accessible route to procurement?
Associate Administrator Exodie C. Roe III: At GSA, our industry outreach is truly a collaborative effort to make sure that the information we’re providing to small and socioeconomic small businesses (SESBs) is useful and helps them learn about our priorities, contract requirements, programs, and contractual requirements. We work with our partners in the Public Buildings Service and Federal Acquisition Service to inform vendors about GSA’s different priorities such as Getting on Schedule, sustainability initiatives, Land Ports of Entry Program, Governmentwide Acquisition vehicles, and more.
We also do everything possible to maximize our use of small business set asides, 8(a) set asides, and other socioeconomic small business set asides. We take our market research seriously and work with our acquisition partners as they determine their acquisition strategy.
We prioritize being accessible to the community by picking up the phone and answering questions, putting on educational events, networking, and proactively partnering with groups that provide procurement training to small businesses such as APEX Accelerator (formerly PTAC). We succeed as an agency when small businesses succeed in procurement.
Rhett Buttle: The GSA mission is to create a more efficient and effective government. How are you and your team planning to meet this goal in 2024?
Associate Administrator Exodie C. Roe III: GSA is making every effort to ensure our best in class (BIC) acquisition vehicles not only include small businesses in the acquisition strategy, but also help Contracting Officers be able to locate and procure goods and services as easily as possible.
GSA recently debuted a new search tool that enables buyers to search for Native business categories in GSA Advantage!, GSA eBuy, and GSA eLibrary for commercial products and services. The new search identifiers (see below) are designed to enable multiple search criteria, such as office supplies and 8(a) status. This feature helps federal agency partners to comply with the Buy Indian Act. With these recent enhancements to the search function, buyers can more efficiently meet socioeconomic contracting goals and identify specific acquisition pathways. For example, the ability to search for hand tools made by American Indian-owned small businesses is now accessible by federal and Tribal buyers.
Rhett Buttle: Are there any other recent policy initiatives that you and your team are excited about?
Associate Administrator Exodie C. Roe III: We are excited about the Post Award Engagement (PAE) and Executive Order (E.O.) 13985.
E.O. 13985 is of utmost importance to this Administration. Borne out of this attention is GSA’s Post Award Engagement Strategy, which is an effort to help bridge the gap for small disadvantaged businesses that obtain a GSA schedule contract but often have difficulty making and meeting sales requirements. We have canvassed the small business community to hear what pain points they face and have implemented an agency-wide plan to address these issues.
There are two new tools we created with OMB which are: The Government-wide Procurement Equity Tool and the Supplier Base Dashboard.
These tools help agencies find businesses new to the federal marketplace, identify qualified vendors, and track their progress toward equity in procurement goals. Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the federal contract spend goal for small disadvantaged businesses has been increased from 5% to 15% by 2025. These tools will support achieving that goal by enhancing access to procurement opportunities for: (1) Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDBs); (2) Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs); (3) Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs); and (4) Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Small Businesses.
The Government-wide Procurement Equity Tool uses dynamic data from SAM.gov and the Federal Procurement Data System to support market research that focuses on SDBs. Federal customers can use the tool to find SDBs by location, business type, North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code, and Product Services Code. Agencies can also find potential new entrants like SDBs that have registered in SAM.gov but have not yet received a federal award.
The Supplier Base Dashboard tracks the total number of entities that have done business with an agency; their size and socioeconomic status; and the number of new, recent, and established vendors in the supplier base and in market categories and subcategories of interest. This helps federal managers grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out by measuring their progress in increasing the number of new entrants to the federal marketplace. It also capitalizes on our nation’s entrepreneurial spirit, which has brought applications for new small businesses in the U.S. to an all-time high.
Rhett Buttle: What would you add?
Associate Administrator Exodie C.Roe III: Building the industrial base and supporting the supply chain and businesses is my passion. In the role of Associate Administrator for the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, I am able to effect change for the good of the public and business community, which I find truly rewarding. The federal government is the largest buyer of goods and services in the world, and GSA is committed to providing equitable access to opportunities for our Nation’s small businesses and minority-owned small businesses.
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