MEETING SCHEDULE

The BBI hosts many different types of meetings that address several different program goals. Below is a description of the types of BBI meetings and the dates they are scheduled for Phase II.

After the announcement of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action in 2005, the Fort Meade Regional Growth Management Committee (RGMC) was formed. The RGMC is composed of ten jurisdictions surrounding Fort Meade: Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Howard County, City of Laurel, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, Queen Anne’s County, and Talbot County.

Fort Meade Regional Growth Management Committee (RGMC)

At its inception, the RGMC was tasked with identifying the impacts and opportunities that Fort Meade growth would bring to the region. Early in the process, growth of defense contracts in support of the Fort Meade mission was identified as a key opportunity for small and minority businesses.

The RGMC discovered that while large defense contractors were well resourced and positioned to act on growth at Fort Meade, many of the small, minority or disadvantaged businesses in the region were having a difficult time traversing the complexities of the defense contracting environment.

The RGMC developed an understanding of the consequences of this contracting environment on small businesses, but was unable to develop a set of sustainable actions for small businesses to take to improve their situation. This situation drove the need for action and in 2009, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, Congressman Elijah Cummings, and Howard Community College President Kate Hetherington established the BRAC Business Initiative (BBI).

The core concept of the BBI is to observe and document the defense contracting environment of the Fort Meade region so that the conditions that define it are more transparent to the small and minority businesses that must function within it. This objective will be accomplished by tracking and documenting the actions of 20 small and minority businesses over a one year period (July 2009 to July 2010). These companies, which represent a cross-section of businesses in the RGMC, will be observed as they traverse the defense contracting environment.

Mission Statement

The BRAC Business Initiative (BBI) will actively engage in defining the environment, identifying the obstacles and documenting specific actions required by small businesses desiring to do work with the Department of Defense and/or with supporting contractors. The BBI will provide the small and minority businesses of the Fort Meade Region with a living “terrain map” that clearly illustrates the opportunities and the obstacles imbedded into the Fort Meade contracting environment

Vision Statement

As a result of the BBI, the region’s small businesses are receiving a substantive portion of contracts from the Ft. Meade community. These businesses have access to the tools and resources they need to navigate the federal contracting environment. Both the federal agencies and their large prime contractors have a real commitment to small business and are making substantial progress in meeting their federally mandated goals (Small business, 8(a), etc.) They have assigned resources to this effort commensurate with their renewed commitment.

1. Goal: Provide local, regional and state decision-makers with information on the Fort Meade Defense Contracting environment that will assist them in making fact-based policy decisions.

2. Goal: Increase the transparency of the Fort Meade related defense contracting environment.

3. Goal: Provide small and minority businesses with a process to assist their access to Fort Meade related contracting opportunities.

4. Goal: Identify the responsible advisory and supporting agencies/organizations; document the resources and methods they devote to small and minority businesses.

5. Goal: Develop a structured, disciplined regional networking organization consisting of all participating BBI companies.