Women Business Owners Not Getting Their Fair Share of Katrina Contracts

There's an interesting story on Women's ENews today about the fact that women business owners are not getting our fair share of Katrina contracts.

One interested contractor tells a story not unfamiliar to many women business owners seeking federal contracts:

Christine Bierman, 54, chief executive officer of Colt Safety, Fire and Rescue, a St. Louis distributor of safety gear, can attest to this. She has introduced herself to 19 prime contractors involved in the Gulf Coast cleanup effort and has called procurement professionals at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Homeland Security. All these efforts have resulted in nothing for the 25-year-old business, which has $4 million in sales and 11 employees.

"I have 850 disaster kits, complete with wind-up radios, gloves and portable respirators, sitting in our company and no one wants to buy them for the cleanup. Hard to believe," Bierman says.

In addition, Bierman has been trying to obtain federal contracts for the past four years with no success. This is despite winning national awards for her products and services, and praise for her work from President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom she has met personally as part of her award ceremonies.

"Most of this business is going to big companies, which is usually the case in general with these contracts," Bari said. "Until federal agencies are given incentives to give contracts to women business owners, this situation remains difficult for entrepreneurs going after these big projects as either contractors or subcontractors."

As Women's Enews points out, this situation is not helped by the government's long delay in implementing the women owned small business procurement program.