Knowing where opportunities exist is essential when it comes to bidding upon and securing federal contracts, and the Procurement Technical Assistance program consultants at NBDC serve as guides and advisors in the process.
That is the relationship government contracting specialist Mary Graff has forged with the leadership at Enviroworks, an environmental remediation and restoration firm headquartered in Omaha.
“We were introduced to the program when we received 8(a) certification in 2012,” says Robert Remack, Enviroworks Chief Operating Officer. “Mary has helped us build a three-way dialogue with her office, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Omaha district office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
The SBA’s 8(a) Business Development Program is a business assistance program for firms that are owned and controlled at least 51 percent by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. Participants can receive sole-source contracts, up to a ceiling of $4 million for goods and services and $6.5 million for manufacturing. Certified 8(a) firms also can form joint ventures and teams to bid on contracts. This enhances the ability of 8(a) firms to perform larger prime contracts and overcome the effects of contract bundling, the combining of two or more contracts together into one large contract.
“NBDC’s government contracting specialists are very influential with government contracts,” Remack says, “both in helping us secure contracts and narrowing the search for contracts that are coming up. Because of Mary, I receive a list every day of 10 to 12 opportunities for contracts that are in our wheelhouse.”
Remack says Graff also has helped lead Enviroworks through the maze of paperwork and requirements regarding the federal government billing process. “Mary came in twice to our office to show us the Wide Area Workforce billing system, how to set it up and then help us with the billing,” he says. “We tell people she makes house calls.”
In addition to its Omaha headquarters, Enviroworks has field offices in Muskegon, Mich., and St. Louis, Mo.
In the third and fourth quarters of 2015, the company was awarded more than $7.5 million in contracts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Omaha and Rock Island districts, as well as EPA Region 7. Enviroworks has served the U.S. Department of the Interior (Bureau of Reclamation and National Park Service), the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Air Force at Offutt and the General Services Administration.
Owned by Marcos Mateus, Enviroworks and its predecessor, Environmental Resources Group, have performed environmental disaster response at Ground Zero in New York City and after hurricanes Katrina, Ivan, Mitch and Sandy; cleanup at the Omaha Lead Superfund site; work on levee flood control projects in Omaha and North Platte; and anthrax cleanup on the East Coast.