Norton Co-Sponsors Two-Day Workshops on Certification Training for DC Small Businesses (2/23/09)

Norton Co-Sponsors Two-Day Workshop on Certification Training for D.C. Small Business Community

February 23, 2009

Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), along with the General Services Administration, is co-sponsoring a two-day training opportunity for District of Columbia small business owners interested in contracting opportunities with the federal government. The two-day workshop begins tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 9 a.m., at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, room 311, in time for District businesses to get certified and take advantage of new construction opportunities at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Southeast. The stimulus package includes $650 million for the first building in the DHS complex, where GSA has already spent $28 million stabilizing the site, 40 percent of which went to District of Columbia small businesses. The DHS headquarters will include five federal agencies on the campus of St. Elizabeths in Ward 8. At the workshop small business owners will learn how to get 8(a) certification, a requisite for competing for contracts with the federal government, and they will meet representatives from the GSA and the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Norton, chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, promised pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship opportunities to District residents and opportunities for small business owners during two hearings and a town hall meeting she held on development at the DHS headquarters. The two-day workshop offered this week is part of the Congresswoman's ongoing efforts to maximize opportunities for the District. The GSA, which reports to Norton's subcommittee, received $5.55 billion for the construction and repair of federal buildings in the stimulus package, which is particularly important to the District because it has a larger federal presence than any other jurisdiction.

Norton said the workshop will go a long way to preparing District businesses to compete for the work in federal construction projects. The Congresswoman plans to attend the opening, but only briefly, as her Black History Month/Ellington Quarter Celebration and a Senate vote on her D.C. House Voting Rights Act is scheduled about the same time.