Area manufacturers hear from Department of Defense
​By: Ryan Amundson, Senior Director of Communications
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​Conflicts, and potential ones, dot the global landscape. From the West Bank to Ukraine, war with global ramifications continue.
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Considering the climate, a strong U.S. defense is paramount. And manufacturers play a huge role in providing the tools our country needs for success.
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On Thursday, a number of manufacturers from the region gathered at the Wisconsin Defense Industry Council Summit to network, share challenges and hear about resources available to them. The Council, launched in December, was created to bring more defense industry opportunities to manufacturers in the state. While Wisconsin sits No. 1 per capita when it comes to manufacturing, it ranks No. 30 in defense contract spending.
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Farooq Mitha, Director of the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs was on hand to provide some insight to those manufacturers. His office has oversight of small business programs, policy, engagement and making sure those businesses are being included in DoD acquisition planning.
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​Mitha said his office is aligning with the White House’s vision by focusing three main areas: “creating equity in the procurement process, increasing competition in the federal government marketplace and increasing domestic supply chain resiliency.”

“Small businesses and medium-sized businesses are really the backbone of the defense industrial base,” said Mitha. “Probably 80 percent or more of our companies are small- or medium sized.”

​Mitha said providing opportunities to a larger base of suppliers – a supplier base that had seen a decline in small prime suppliers when he assumed his position in 2021 – is positive not only for those businesses but the federal government, too.
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“We strongly believe a diverse, robust domestic supplier base is good for the Department (of Defense),” he said.
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Realizing working with the Pentagon can be a complex process, Mitha said one of the first things we wanted to tackle was making that process easier on suppliers. To do this his office took over the Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTAC) program – a network of offices across the country to help local small business navigate the government contracting landscape. Those centers have been renamed Apex Accelerators.

“We’re working to provide companies the tools they need to better serve them,” he said.

In addition to helping small- and medium-sized businesses wade through the process, Mitha said his department has expanded the number of metrics it’s using to measure success.
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“How many companies are we bringing into the government and DoD industrial base? How much spend is going to those companies? How are we helping leverage our accelerators for market research,” he said, pointing to an expanded number of data points his office is now looking at.
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​Mitha said his office is also communicating with business and letting them know what technologies the DoD is looking and providing resources to those businesses for research and development to deliver those products – a program that was set to expire a few years ago.
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“If the prototype is successful, and we want it, we might actually buy it from you,” he said.