Kathleen Hicks Highlights Importance of Creating Opportunities for Small Businesses

Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of the Division of Protection and a 2022 Clean100 Award winner, explained that easing the boundaries that hinder smaller businesses to perform with the Pentagon is crucial to making it possible for the U.S. armed forces to develop, innovate and diversify warfighting abilities.

Speaking remotely at the Defense Office Smaller Company Instruction Week Convention, Hicks stated compact firms play an critical job in encouraging DOD acquire ground breaking technologies built to sustain battlefield edge, the Pentagon claimed Tuesday.

In a Twitter post, Hicks explained modest firms are indispensable in supporting protect the U.S. and are “vital to the complete spectrum of DOD’s demands.”

Having said that, Hicks acknowledged the worries confronted by modest firms in pursuing deal possibilities with DOD and famous that the division is taking techniques to enhance their participation in the defense industrial foundation.

Between these initiatives is the Mentor-Protege System, which aids eligible smaller companies husband or wife with greater businesses to turn out to be part of the DOD provide chain.

DOD also has specified facilities for furnishing specialized guidance to modest organizations searching to do the job with local, point out and federal governing administration businesses.