On January 26, 2005, we will have served the state's small business government procurement needs for 19 years. Over our 19-year life, there has been significant growth in the services we provide to the companies of North Carolina, in the number of contracts you are receiving, and in our statewide PTAC counseling staff. We now have six counselors that serve every county in North Carolina, and our PTAC clientele received over $855,000,000 in government contracts just last year. The US Department of Defense estimates that that supports 17,033 jobs in North Carolina · an impressive record.
We will soon have to prepare and submit our PTAC year-end report to the US Department of Defense (DoD), the organization which funds our mission. This report covers the number and demographics of the North Carolina companies our counselors serve and, most importantly, the number of awards they have received (as well as the dollar value of those awards). This last data is derived from the awards surveys that I e-mail to each company we serve. For the first time, we are aware of over $1,000,000,000 in awards to companies in North Carolina. Being "aware" is not enough: we need each company to complete and return this survey. DoD only accepts data returned via that survey. Those wonderful e-mails and phone calls that say, "We got it" are great news to my ears but help us not at all when it comes time to report our successes (which are your successes as well).
So PLEASE, promptly complete and return the surveys. They
should be e-mailed after our program year ends.
My sincere thanks to all who have worked with the NC PTAC, and my best wishes
for an even better 2005.