Veteran subcommittee nominations sought

General Services Administration officials are seeking to fill a panel to aid the agency's efforts to award more contracts to service-disabled veterans, according to a notice posted today.

GSA wants nominations for the Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business Subcommittee of the GSA Small Business Advisory Committee. The subcommittee is a part of the agency's larger program initiative to at least meet its 3 percent contracting goal for small businesses owned by service-disabled veterans, according to a notice in the Federal Register.

Nominations for the subcommittee can be sent to sbac@gsa.gov.

In August, GSA and two groups that represent veterans agreed to increase the federal contracting dollars going to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.

In the agreements, GSA said it would encourage its contracting officers to consider the service-disabled veteran contracting goals early in the acquisition planning process. The groups, The Elite SDVOB Network and The Veterans Entrepreneurship Task Force, agreed to update GSA on concerns of service-disabled veterans and to urge the veterans to get GSA contracts.

In March, GSA launched a larger initiative called the 21 Gun Salute. Through this program, officials want to set aside GSA contracts solely for service-disabled veterans.

GSA said preliminary third-quarter data for fiscal 2008 shows that it spent 3.2 percent of total procurement dollars on businesses owned by service-disabled veterans, up from 2.2 percent in fiscal 2007.

Matthew Weigelt writes for Federal Computer Week, an 1105 Government Information Group publication.