Logan Pass in Glacier National Park shines on a beautiful winter day. (Courtesy NPS)

By Tom Acevedo, S&K Technologies, Inc. CEO.

Although we are well into our new fiscal year it is still exciting to contemplate what the 2015 calendar year has in store. We constantly try and make educated guesses as to what we think will happen. Our general business plan continues to be in effect but as always we regularly evaluate the various strategies we employ to make our overall business effective.

I do expect that we will be making some introductory trips to Washington, DC, for meetings with some of the new members of Congress. We will of course work independently and with the Native American Contractors Association (NACA) in this effort. We have a new senator from the state of Montana that we met with briefly when he was a Congressman and we surely will spend more time with him now in his new role. Of course, we continue to have a positive working relationship with Montana’s Democratic Senator.

Along with this approach, it will be extremely interesting to see what this new Congress controlled by the Republicans will bring about. The one expected change is that we should see budgets being passed. This will certainly help the various administrative agencies plan more effectively. This could help our business throughout the year as contracts that may have been delayed are awarded.

Although we clearly embrace the SBA’s 8(a) program and work diligently to win contract awards through the program, we are well aware of just how important it is to win awards outside of the program. With this in mind, as we have in the past, we will continue to seek these non-8(a) contracts. Of course, this is especially important for our graduated 8(a) subsidiaries and the ones about to graduate. Our new bid and proposal approach will be of extreme importance in improving our win rates in this venue.

Finally, I commend all of you who work so hard to meet and exceed the obligations of the contracts in progress. Your efforts in this endeavor continue to create a very positive image with the various federal agencies. All of this contributes towards positioning our companies for new contract awards.