The Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs hosted the first-ever aerospace business matchmaker conference with NASA business administrators on Tuesday.
NASA has primarily been looking for small business partnerships in Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Expansion through small business contracting for NASA totaled over $2 billion in 2017 and has since grown an additional $3 billion.
Over 400 public participants attended the conference, showing the importance in small business and government collaboration, President Duane Nellis said.
Leaders of the conference included Associate Administrator of The Office of Small Business programs at NASA, Glenn Delgado, Robert Scott for Region V of the U.S. Regional Small Business Administration and Nellis.
“We at NASA are always looking for places to expand our industrial business platform,” Delgado said. “We look for places that we’ve been to before or where we think the ground is fertile.”
Opportunities may be available to businesses involved in providing goods and services including: mechanical and electrical engineering, IT services, maintenance, medical services, office supplies and equipment, office administrative services, testing laboratories, apparel and security.
There are no qualifications for businesses that wish to participate in a partnership with NASA, Delgado said. Job interest, partnership and application depends on the skill and desired work type of the applicant.
Scott noted that small business contracts in areas like Southeastern Ohio are an important aspect to economic growth. Interactions between those businesses provide aid in both regional and national economic growth.
“Creating employment in the compounding companies we develop, the company Global Cooling for example, creates new jobs. There may be a dimension that is of interest to NASA that augments the potential for number of people that are employed,” Scott said.
This year, the Small Business Administration had record high loan rates and is looking to surpass those rates in the coming year.
“This tells you that small businesses need a plug in for capital, whether that be hiring new employees, or buying new equipment.” Scott said.
In April, NASA was reassigned missions to the moon and Mars. Delgado stressed the importance of finding necessary resources to make both missions possible and effective.
“Most people don’t realize small business impact on large missions.” Delgado said. “In the past, these have included The Orion mission and The International Space Station.”
