Small business owners mingle with key contractors

By KAREN NELSON - klnelson@sunherald.com

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MOSS POINT — More than 450 representatives of small businesses took the opportunity to network with prime contractors Thursday at the second annual Department of Defense Industry Day.

The event, held at Pelican Landing conference center, offered booths and speakers on topics that ranged from SBA program updates to lessons on developing proposals.

The annual event was dreamed up by the Supervisor of Shipbuilding in the U.S. Department of the Navy and executed by the South Mississippi Contract Procurement Center.

KAREN NELSON/SUN HERALD Mike Meehan, left, of SVS Vision Center’s office in Ohio, attends the annual Department of Defense Industry Day at Moss Point’s Pelican Landing conference center Thursday. His company supplies prescription safety glasses to industry, and he says he finds the trade show on the Coast helpful. He’s talking with Rekeicha Brown with Biloxi’s FEMA office, Department of Homeland Security. More than 450 attended the event from throughout the U.S.

The workshop was designed to give small businesses a better chance at selling their products and services to prime defense contractors. It lasted from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and cost $25.

“The defense-related shipbuilding industry along the Mississippi Coast provides millions of dollars in procurement opportunities each year,” said Marcia McDowell, director of the Procurement Center.

On Thursday, business reps came from every state in the United States, McDowell said.

“We turned away more than 100,” she said. “I think we booked out the Holiday Inn Express, the Hampton Inn and maybe even the La Quinta.”

The attendees learned contact names and numbers and Internet sites for helpful information.

Rekeicha Brown, with FEMA’s office in Biloxi, had a booth and said she was able to educate people on how to do business with FEMA, the steps to registering and the opportunities available.

Phillip Pendleton with ADP Metals Inc. in Edwards, Miss., said he has driven down for the workshop both years.