Federal contracting work opens up for small WV businesses via HUBZone program

FEDERAL CONTRACTING – Competing for federal contracts as a small business in West Virginia can be hard. But in certain situations, one program makes location and size an advantage for Allegheny Surveys and others like it.

The regional land surveying company recently had its contract renewed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to Terri Hughart, chief financial officer of Allegheny Surveys. A big reason why the 54-employee company was able to nab that renewal is the HUBZone designation it obtained in 2016, she said.

“The [U.S. Small Business Administration] reached out to us two or three years ago and said we meet a lot of the qualifications for the HUBZone, and if we got that designation, we could see a lot of benefits when the government is looking at hiring contractors,” Hughart said.

The HUBZone, or Historically Underutilized Business Zones Program, is a U.S. Small Business Administration-run program that intends to jumpstart economic development in underserved areas by giving their local businesses priority in federal contracting work. Benefits include sole source contracting opportunities and a 10 percent price evaluation preference for bids.

“It gives chances for companies in economically depressed areas to get work, and if the government is giving them work, these companies are going to give people in their area work,” said George Murray, deputy district director for the SBA’s West Virginia office.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development determines which areas of the country should be designated as part of the HUBZone primarily by measuring household income and unemployment rate, which updates at least every five years, Murray said. Businesses must be located within a HUBZone area, be considered “small” by SBA standards and have at least 35 percent of employees residing in a HUBZone, among other requirements, in order to be eligible for program application.

With West Virginia’s economic struggles, a large portion of the state is designated as HUBZone-eligible, including several southern and central counties and parts of cities like Charleston, Huntington and Morgantown.

Allegheny Surveys has four locations in West Virginia, but its Alum Creek office may be the most reliant on federal contracts, according to Wes Miller, a design technician at the Alum Creek location. Miller showed a recent survey Allegheny Surveys made of Paint Creek Lake in Ohio for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, so the corps could see what areas they could safely flood as part of flood control efforts.

“We’ll do work for coal companies, but obviously that’s been limited lately,” he said. “Federal contracts usually pay better.”

Allegheny Surveys isn’t alone in its HUBZone certification. Thirty-six West Virginia firms are currently certified, according to SBA data obtained Friday. Only one of those firms is headquartered in Charleston, while Martinsburg, Morgantown and Bridgeport house multiple certified firms.

Information technology services made up the majority of the firms’ specialties, with construction, mapping and design services also making multiple appearances. Nationally, building construction makes up a large portion of HUBZone contractors, with infrastructure development and IT services also making the SBA’s Top 10.

Greenbrier Government Solutions, an Oceana-based information technology services company, is nearing a deal to be a subcontractor for technical services in 84 countries for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Center for Global Health — in all, a $250 million deal on a five-year contract for the involved contractors, according to CEO Scotty Johnson.

Johnson said the primary contractor on the deal, ACS Group, invited the 12-employee company aboard partly because of the HUBZone designation. The program is particularly advantageous for small businesses looking for subcontracting work, Johnson said, because the federal government aims to award 3 percent of its prime contract dollars to HUBZone-certified businesses, according to the SBA website.

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