Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 2011 — Let HI-PTAC help you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Let HI-PTAC help you

By Claus Prufer t is the season of festivities, and here in Hawai'i we have many good reasons to be thankful. Today I would like to write to you with one main thought in mind: to say thank you for supporting the Hawai'i Procurement īeehnieal Assistance Program, HI-PTAC. Mahalo.

We are here to help you in unders t a n d i n g the eomplexities of government procurement - be that on the federal, state or loeal level. Some of our clients have been a w a r d e d government contracts and subcontracts. Congratulations ! Some of you are new

to the game and possibly hesitating to contact us. Do let us help you because many a successful business person will agree that doing government procurement is not easy. But you have perseverance. After you sign up on our web site www.hiptac.org, you may fill out a questionnaire designed to ascertain the type of business you are in, the length of the firm's life span and other questions. These are to enable us to direct solicitations in the keywords appropriate to allow us to send you bids on your computer ... free of charge. These keywords are akin to NICS code identifiers that are used by eontracting officers to find you and invite you to bid on a solicitation. Our PTAssist is a bid-matching system calling on LedBizOps,

the Defense Logistics Agency and many other databases to provide you the latest in bids available. And you may respond to these bids and make an offer. The more offers you make the better the possibility to hook the project . . . and generate cash flow and profits. But what will you do in the

process if you don't understand terms and conditions? If the solicitation is worded in a weird way, if costing the offer gives you a headache? You eall us! We are here to help you. That's our mission. And how ean we do it for free? Hawai'i PTAC is located at and funded primarily by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, with matching funds by the Defense Logistics Agency. The effort of DOD is to increase competition in the private sector to satisfy its requirement for products and services. Title 10, United States Code, Chapter 142, as amended, authorizes the Secretary of Defense, acting through the Director of the Defense Logistics Agency to enter into cost-sharing agreements under

whieh we performin accordance with its terms and conditions. We abide by it and have established a fine working relationship with the contracting officer of DLA in a quest to meet or exceed their goals . . . and that is where you eome in. You are our client or a future one and you count! But you are also fortunate because we have knowl-

e d g e a b i e counselors on staff who either have had many years of industrywide work experience in government procurement or have been specialists and contracting officers in the Navy, the Air Lorce and the Corps of Engineers, all giving them the means with

whieh to counsel you and win contracts. By way of introduction the staffof HI-PTAC: > Leticia "Letty" Ojeda at 594-1986, email: leticiao@ oha.org >Jadine Lee at 594-1917, email: jadinel@oha.org >Claus Prufer at 594-1831, email: clausp_hi-ptac@ oha.org Lor businesses on the Neighbor Islands, contact procurement counselors Evette Lau at Maui Eeonomie Opportunity ine. at 808-249-2990 ext. 3 18 or evette. lau@meoinc.org, or Kimberly Haueisen at Maui Eeonomie Development Board at 808-270-6803 or kim@medb.org. And to all, Aloha from the HIPTAC! ■

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Jadine Lee, Claus Prufer and Lefty Ojeda are the staff of HI-PTAC. - Photo: LisaAsato