Editor’s note: Today’s article comes to us from Rich Lyles who serves as the Northwest Texas Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) Program Manager. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles your Chamber, as an independent contractor to the DCOA, is working to align the AIF, the SBDC, the federal PTAC program and much more to meet the needs of our small business community.
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Last fiscal year the federal government spent over half a trillion dollars to procure goods and services. State and local governments across the country spent just over 1.5 trillion dollars in goods and services in the aggregate. Now there is a new office in Abilene that exits to help business in Northwest Texas tap into this lucrative market.
“The Northwest Texas Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) has moved their main office from Lubbock to Abilene earlier this summer,” said Rich Lyles, PTAC Program Director. Northwest Texas’ PTAC program is part of Texas Tech University and its mission is to help small businesses in its service area find, bid and win procurement opportunities with federal, state, and local government entities. The service area consists of 95 counties throughout northwest Texas and includes the Wichita Falls, Abilene, Midland/Odessa, Lubbock, and Amarillo metro areas. “Although the Lubbock location experienced a modicum of success throughout the years, we decided to move the main office from Lubbock to Abilene because it makes more sense to be closer to Dyess AFB. We also opened an additional location in Wichita Falls to serve clients seeking business opportunities at Sheppard AFB. Our goal is to let businesses know that we’re here to help them get as much of the government contracting pie as possible.” Mr Lyles stated.
Through one-on-one and group counseling PTAC educates and assists local businesses to more effectively compete in the government marketplace. PTAC provides a bid-matching service to help businesses identify relevant contracting opportunities and then offers technical assistance on many aspects of the government contracting process including, but not limited to, registration assistance, Business to Government marketing, diversity program eligibility and solicitation response document review. All service provided by the Northwest Texas PTAC are free of charge to client companies in its service area.
Many businesses consider the idea of selling their services and/or products to the government much too complicated and overwhelming. In today’s marketplace, the government could become any company’s best customer. The Northwest Texas PTAC, helps simplify the process and cut through the red tape, connecting local businesses with lucrative opportunities. The PTAC can help local business with such issues at registering to do business with the federal government by registering in the System for Award Management (SAM), obtaining a Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number, and applying for any of the federal socioeconomic certification programs such as HUBZone, 8(a), Veteran Owned Small Business, Woman Owned Small Business, and more…
The PTAC can also assist Texas contractors/vendors/suppliers with other aspects of the procurement process including government contracting readiness assessment, GSA assistance and registration for government contracting set-aside programs. Government contracting can be complicated. To date this year, the PTAC has successfully assisted hundreds of Texas small businesses who have been awarded over 6 million dollars. If a small business is looking for a way to expand its customer base, government contracting may be an option.
Rich Lyles is the Director of the PTAC program. Rich began his career with the Bureau of Reclamation in Boulder City, Nevada back in 1990, and spent the next three years there before moving on to a small business defense contractor located in Henderson, Nevada for the next 17 years. He began his career in the PTAC world in 2013 in the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development rising to Deputy Director of the Nevada PTAC. Rich then became the Director of the Wyoming PTAC before taking the role of Director of the Northwest Texas PTAC this spring. The Northwest Texas PTAC offices in Abilene are co-located with the Small Business Development Center at 749 Gateway Street; Building C, Suite 301; Abilene, Texas 79602. The main phone is: 806-742-7822 (it’s a VOIP). The local number is 325-670-0300. Rich’s email address is: rich.LyLes@ttu.edu .
Mark C Snyder is the PTAC senior field advisor located in Wichita Falls and serves the entire program area as well. Mark joined the PTAC last month after spending the last 20+ years at Sheppard AFB, most recently serving as Director of Business Operations. In this position Mark was responsible for managing a staff of procurement professionals as well as cultivating direct relationships with major commands throughout the base and helping small businesses to identify and respond to many types of procurement opportunities the Air Force offers. Mark is located on the campus of Midwestern State University and can be reached at: 940-397-4371 or mark.snyder@msutexas.edu .
The Northwest Texas PTAC is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Texas Tech University.