Earlier this month, Baltimore City reached an agreement with federal and state environmental agencies that commits the city to greatly reduce the amount of sewage that overflows in Baltimore within less than five years. The agreement is a modification to a 2002 consent decree between the Maryland Department of the Environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection...
Tag: Small business
Our Client, Dr. Kimberly Brown, Featured in Newspaper Profile
Our client, Dr. Kimberly Brown, who is president and CEO of Baltimore-based Amethyst Technologies, was featured in an article in the Baltimore Times on May 13, 2016. Dr. Brown founded the company in 2006, and it now has annual revenue of about $2 million and clients that include the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research,...
Construction Industry Note: New OSHA Rule Gets Tough on Workplace Silica
By Carol L. O’Riordan Any company that is in the construction industry needs to be aware of a new rule on occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica that was just issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). On March 25, 2016, OSHA set forth its long-awaited final rule setting tougher standards for occupational...
No, the Government Contract Preference Programs are Not Broken
By Carol L. O’Riordan We believe that the various government contract programs that give a degree of preference to disadvantaged groups are a good idea, and we work hard to put our clients in a position to benefit from them, but we also recognize that they can be abused. Two years ago, we wrote in...
D.C. Making Changes to Its Small Business Preference Rules
On February 26, 2015, the District of Columbia’s Department of State and Local Business Development (DSLBD) made an announcement requesting public comments on recent changes made last fall to the D.C. local law concerning contract preferences for small businesses and other “Certified Business Enterprises” (CBEs). These changes were made by the Small and Certified Business...
SBA Changes Contract Qualification Rules for Small Businesses
As we noted in an earlier blog post this month, the Small Business Administration has released a proposed rule that would affect, in several ways, the operation of several special business preference programs for federal contracts. These include the 8(a) program for disadvantaged small businesses, the HUBZone program for businesses in historically underutilized business zones, and...
New SBA Rule Would Help Small Businesses Qualify for Federal Programs
By Carol L. O’Riordan The Small Business Administration has released a proposed rule that would affect the operation of several special business preference programs for federal contracts, such as the 8(a) program for disadvantaged small businesses, the HUBZone program for businesses in historically underutilized business zones, and the program to aid businesses run by service-disabled...
SBA Proposes New Mentor-Protege Program for Small Businesses
The Small Business Administration, which has the mission of expanding federal contract opportunities for various types of small businesses while continuing to work to prevent fraud in these programs, is proposing to establish a government-wide mentor-protégé program for all types of small businesses, parallel to the existing mentor-protégé program under the SBA’s 8(a) business...
O’Riordan Bethel Receives Award for Its Work for Virginia Agency
At the 2014 Annual Breakthrough Breakfast of the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization (WPEO) at D.C’s .J.W. Marriott Hotel on December 4, 2014, O’Riordan Bethel received the Access Public Sector Award in recognition of its work with the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Minority Business Enterprise. The WPEO is a national women’s business organization that promotes...
Harold Charles of CEEPCO Receives 2014 Award From SBA
We are delighted to say that one of our clients, Harold Charles of CEEPCO, was selected by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s D.C.-area office as the Small Business Person of the Year for Maryland. Here is the release announcing this honor. SBA’s Washington, DC District Office Selects CEEPCO President Harold Charles as Small Business Person of...