HUBZone | Historically Underutilized Business Zones

Who are American HUBZone businesses and why should we care?

HUBZone companies include women-owned and veteran-owned firms, as well as small disadvantaged (SDB/8a) businesses.

HUBZones are economic zones, not simply geographic locations. For example, there are HUBZones in Fort Polk, LA; Baltimore, MD; Puerto Rico; Alaska; Duncan, OK; and Leesburg, Virginia.

SBA's HUBZone Program - Who is Eligible and What's the Process?

Visit SBA for updates

How the GovCon Chamber helped stop SBA's 10 year HUBZone Dive

Neil McDonnell explains the full range of outreach and educational activities that resulted in a historic increase of federal contracts awarded to HUBZone firms.
* FY18 Report | HUBZone Chamber

Get Opportunities 'Set Aside'

Contracting officials can use set-aside and sole-source contracts to help agencies meet their small business contracting goals.

During the Sources Sought market research phase –

Insert the recommended set aside language into the body of your email
Include the language on the first page or executive summary of your RFI response
Highlight the request language to ensure the contracting officer notices it

Recommended language –

"We respectfully request this opportunity be designated as a Competitive HUBZone Set Aside. We have coordinated with the GovCon Chamber of Commerce to ensure you can have a reasonable expectation that 2 or more HUBZone-certified small businesses will submit a proposal against this RFP, should it come out. These proposals will be from procurement ready firms quoting reasonable market rates."

How PTACs can help your business

Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) help businesses pursue and perform under contracts with federal agencies and government prime contractors. Most of the assistance is free.

Nationwide PTACs can help you identify contract opportunities, understand requirements, prepare and submit bids. Find your local PTAC.

GovCon Chamber president Neil McDonnell to Department of Labor (DOL) Vendor Outreach Session | 2018

Hosting over 250 events during 2018, the Chamber's unique Set-Aside Call program massively influenced the surge of HUBZone responses during the FY2018 market research phase. Together we stopped a 10 year decline in this SBA program

SUCCESS

August 2018 | State Department set-aside a $200 million IDIQ for HUBZone small businesses. Within 24 hours of the State Department request during their Sources Sought phase, the Chamber identified nearly 100 qualified and interested HUBZone small businesses who indicated they would respond if the RFP was set aside for HUBZone.

SUCCESS

2018 | PCI Tech wins $9.3M HUBZone contract (NAICS 541519)

Congratulations to PCi Tec on your recent $9.3M HUBZone set aside award with the Defense Health Agency. Established in 1993 as an Information Technology (IT) solutions, and services company, Panamerica Computers, Inc (PCi Tec) is a HUBZone-certified and Women-Owned small business located in Luray, Virginia.

SUCCESS

2018 Softrams $20M HUBZone Win U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Softrams, an 8(a) HUBZone small business, who specializes in emerging technologies for HX/UX, Cloud, AI, Cybersecurity, DevSecOps, Blockchain, RPA and Mobile Apps.

2019 Award of a 5-year task to support the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in planning, development and operations of the Accountable Care Organization – Operational System

SUCCESS

FY2018 | Navy Spent $1 Billion Dollars with HUBZone Small Business contractors

In 2018, the Department of the Navy awarded almost $1 billion contract dollars to HUBZone certified small businesses. Learn which NAICS Codes got the most money.

ABOUT THE CHAMBER

What makes the GovCon Chamber different?

In March 2018, Neil McDonnell created the HUBZone Chamber as an independent, dues-free, membership organization designed to help small businesses become successful in the government marketplace and to help contracting officers achieve their specific agency small business targets.

After 20+ years as a successful federal contractor with several agencies and large primes, Neil knew that “government contracting is NOT a secret... it is just a Process.” And we believe the Rules of the Road should be made available for free to help small businesses gain traction and grow in federal contracting. We changed our name to GovCon Chamber of Commerce in 2020 because we serve all small businesses owners – HUBZone, women owned, veteran-owned and 8(a) businesses. The process is the same for everyone

Hosting over 250 events in 2018, the Chamber's unique outreach program massively influenced the surge of HUBZone responses during the FY2018 market research phase.

FEDERAL PROBLEM:

Contracting officers were not finding enough procurement-ready certified-HUBZone small businesses

CHAMBER SOLUTION:

Trained hundreds of small businesses across the country and provided the guidance they needed to improve their “visibility” with the federal buyer
Hosted over 150 Set Aside Calls with over 1000 participants to help HUBZone companies respond to active Sources Sought
Helped members learn to deliver quality responses to sources sought that demonstrated skills and experience in a way that contracting officers could feel comfortable awarding to a HUBZone small business
Launched FREE online courses to help small businesses fix their DSBS / Dynamic Small Business Search Small Business Profile
Identified all small businesses with an office located in HUBZones

Offered FREE introductory webinar on how becoming HUBZone-certified could grow their business
Launched FREE online course to help small business owners determine their HUBZone eligibility, and step by step guidance through the SBA application process

FEDERAL PROBLEM:

Small businesses are required to enter addresses one at a time to validate them on the SBA’s map. This time-consuming challenge discouraged qualified companies from the process.

CHAMBER SOLUTION:

Built the HUBZone Bulk Validator capable processing thousands of addresses at once
Reduced processing time for companies by 95% and increased accuracy to 100%.
Read about theHUBZone Bulk Validator tool

FEDERAL PROBLEM:

Needed more visibility for the HUBZone Program among political representatives and federal agency leadership

CHAMBER SOLUTION:

Reached out to every Congressional Representatives office reminding them of the value it could bring to their districts when local small businesses win federal contracts
Reached out to every federal agency • participated as featured speakers at events by DOE, DOL, and NACA
Hosted a virtual event for almost 100 PTAC advisors