Give Me 5: Special Unit - Construction. The Fundamentals of the FAR, Part 3: Debriefing and Protests

Small business owners in the construction industry are among businesses that spend the most seeking federal contracts, investing an average $172,058 per contract. The first step for business owners to apply for these contracts is registering on the System for Award Management (SAM), which allows small business owners to make a company profile that agencies may reference when making awarding decisions. During the SAM registration process, the system asks questions based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), a set of rules outlining how the federal government awards contracts.

The Give Me 5 program is hosting a series of webinars on the basics of the FAR and how small business owners in the construction industry can take advantage of the contracts available to them. Each of the installments in the series have touched on strategies to increase the likelihood of winning contracts specific to the construction industry.

The next installment in the series, on April 29^th, will focus on how small business owners in the construction industry can understand why they were not awarded a contract and how to protest the decision. The webinar will be instructed by construction law specialists Jennifer Horn and Maria Panichelli of Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC. Upcoming webinars in the series will cover bonding and liens, defending against protests and negotiation tactics for women subcontractors

The Give Me 5 program was created by American Express OPEN and Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) in 2008 to help women business owners get a leg up on selling to the world’s largest customer:  the U.S. government.