LSI Business Development of Ohio, Inc. is moving forward with plans to establish a Government Procurement Economic Development Program in the Dayton region. LSI recently was endorsed by the Dayton Region Blue Ribbon Task Force (the “BRTF”) to administer a government procurement assistance program for small and medium sized Ohio businesses seeking Federal government contracts, including in particular, contracts with Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) located in the Dayton region. In this capacity, LSI will collaborate with local economic development agencies to assist small businesses with procurement opportunities with WPAFB and other federal agencies. The BRTF selected LSI for its endorsement based in large part on the success of LSI with similar programs in Utah and Oklahoma.
The endorsement of LSI by the BRTF is in response to a report issued on July 12, 2010 by the Regional Blue Ribbon Commission (“Commission”), a commission organized by U.S. Congressman Steve Austria (OH-7), which made 16 recommendations designed to improve how businesses in the Dayton-WPAFB region could do more business with and better support WPAFB. One of these recommendations was to encourage the State of Ohio and local governments to fund a program to assist the state’s small and medium sized businesses in opportunity assessment, strategy, proposal development, contract negotiations, capture and program support. The endorsement of LSI by the BRTF seeks to advance that recommendation.
The BRTF is comprised of a number of leaders from local business, academia and trade associations, has been active in evaluating and pursuing implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. Demonstrating the region’s strength in advancing collaborative efforts, the BRTF delivered findings to the community in March, 2011 that included a number of organizations agreeing to take a leadership role for implementing 14 of the Commission’s 16 recommendations. The BRTF chose to not assign a lead for the recommendation on creating a procurement support program due to the broad strategic impact associated with the initiative. Instead, they took an additional six months to assess options and subsequently decided to work with LSI to advance the initiative. The program initially will be funded with local support.
