By Jason Costa
NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center
For the second year in a row, the small business program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida received the agency’s Small Business Administrator’s Cup Award for its successful and innovative practices promoting small business participation in NASA initiatives during fiscal year 2021. After wins in 2009 and 2020, this marks the third time Kennedy has received the award.
“We continue to lead government in how we do small business,” NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana said while presenting this year’s award to Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro and the spaceport’s Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) team. “NASA obligated $3.5 billion directly to small businesses, and that’s the highest amount that the agency has ever done. Small business is a huge part of what we’re doing at NASA, and I’m really proud of the agency as a whole.”
Kennedy’s OSBP team focuses on integrating small businesses into NASA’s competitive contracting processes and representing the agency to scores of private companies, nonprofits, and universities. The office also hosts education and outreach initiatives and provides counsel on contract opportunities and practices, business development, laws, and regulations.
The efforts of Kennedy’s team in 2021 led to scores of small businesses doing a wide array of work at the busy multiuser spaceport, including grounds maintenance, environmental, medical, protective, and fire services, and safety and mission assurance support.
“Small business is the epitome of our economy,” Senior Small Business Specialist Joyce McDowell said. “I’m overjoyed to know that our program has been recognized yet again as the best overall small business program in the agency.”
To the Kennedy team, each small business represents a new opportunity for NASA to benefit from a unique perspective and approach, and several of the companies providing work at the spaceport are woman-owned, employee-owned, small disadvantaged businesses, or Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) companies.
“By fostering an atmosphere of inclusion and respect for all, we value and appreciate the strengths afforded by both the commonalities and differences between us,” McDowell said. “This in turn drives innovation, creativity, and engagement between NASA and the small business community.”
Even while much of the Kennedy OSBP team’s work last year focused on the spaceport’s needs, its efforts to drive innovation through small business extended agencywide. Through its support of the CubeSat Launch Initiative – managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy – the office served as the entry point for small businesses seeking to demonstrate new rocket capabilities for science missions and small satellite launches, fostering development of new technologies for the commercial market and helping provide low-cost access to space.
Supporting the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs – which offer opportunities for small businesses and research institutions to partner with the agency – Kennedy’s OSBP provided companies outreach, education, and guidance on doing business with large federal agencies like NASA, serving as a vital link in a chain that spurs technological innovation for NASA’s missions, provides societal benefit, and grows the national economy.
Aiming to keep up the good work and become the first NASA center to orchestrate an Administrator’s Cup Award threepeat, Kennedy’s OSBP is discussing plans to host the agency’s largest Business Opportunities EXPO in FY24. The annual event – held virtually during the pandemic – will take place at the Port Canaveral Authority Terminal near Kennedy and bring together hundreds of businesses and attendees from all over the country to take advantage of myriad networking opportunities and information sessions. This is just one of the many opportunities the team hopes to provide small businesses in the coming year.
“I have been at Kennedy for 42 years, and it still brings me joy to know that my office is NASA’s glass door for the small business community,” McDowell said. “We are KSC Office of Small Business strong!”