Small/Disadvantaged Business Certifications
What are SDB, HUB, HUBZone, SDVOSB, 8(a) MBE, and WBE certifications, to name just a few? Do I need them? What benefit are they to my firm? Do I even qualify for any of them? This presentation will try and answer all of those questions for you.

Join us as we will cover what Federal, State and local government certifications are out there and how they apply to you, whether you are a small business or a large business.



About Our Speaker
Valerie Coleman is a 37 year employee of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She is currently serving as a Procurement Center Representative (PCR) and Commercial Market Representative (CMR). She has a post-of-duty station at Johnson Space Center. In her capacity as PCR, Val is charged with working with various government agencies to ensure the largest possible percentage of contract support to small businesses. In her capacity as CMR, Val reviews large businesses to ensure that they are meeting their goals working with small businesses.

Val has received numerous awards for her work with small businesses including those from the White House Conference on Small Business by President Clinton; National Contract Management Association, National Council of Contractors Association; National Association of Minority Contractors; United Way; Little Rock AFB, Corps of Engineers in Little Rock, Arkansas and Vicksburg, Mississippi, Minority Enterprise Development Week and the Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce. Just recently, Val was presented with the 2008 Houston Minority Champion of the Year and 2009 Department of Homeland Security Interagency Cooperative Award.


When: Wednesday March 10, 2010
11:30AM Registration, Networking and Lunch
12:00 — 1:00PM Program

Where: Houston AGC
3825 Dacoma

Cost: $20 SMPS members
$30 Non-members
$10 Student members



Questions? Contact Matt at mjconnor@civiltecheng.com . You should receive a confirmation within 48 hours. If you do not, please contact smpshouston@earthlink.net .


RSVP Monday March 8th at NOON. Cost: $20 Members/ $30 Nonmembers / $10 Students
If three or more register from the same firm, all get the member rate when registering together regardless of member status. Walkins accepted depending on availability of space. No lunch guaranteed for walkins.


Prior payment is encouraged. You may also select to pay at the door with exact cash, check or credit card. Please make checks payable to SMPS Houston Chapter. No fault cancellation will be accepted 48 hours in advance. No shows will be billed.






***Tips for using the new registration system:***

SMPS Houston is excited to inform you that there have been improvements made to our registration system to make it a little more flexible.

Once you are logged in, you will notice these differences:

1) You are now asked to enter your member number or status if you are creating a new profile and are a member. You may enter the number assigned to you by national and found on your membership card or just put "Yes" in the field.
2) You will now be able to register members and nonmembers under the same log in! Just use the pull down menu next to each field that you type in the name. Board members and sponsors can register for their comp seats here as well when relevant.
3) You have the option to enter the email address of those you are registering so that they will directly receive the confirmation.
4) We have added a student rate for those that are joining our student chapter.
5) Lastly, with the flexibility we have lost the option to automatically calculate the group rate when applicable. However, you can easily receive and prepay for this rate by registering three or more at the same time and just listing them under ´member´ in the pull down menu by where you are entering their name.

Most of the other important steps remain the same. Remember these three very important steps to ensure your registration goes through. Here are few frequently asked questions
1) It is saying it doesn´t recognize my email address? This means that you have not created a login yet and you will need to follow the proper steps to do so. A good test to see if you have a registration profile already set up would be to fill out your email address under "Forget your password". If it brings up a message saying that your email address is not found it means that your profile was either set up under an old email address (to which you should create a new registration profile) or you have not set up a registration profile at all.

2) My credit card was declined? Why? The majority of the time this is due to the person registering not entering the correct BILLING ADDRESS THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY HAS ON FILE. So say you are registering under your company info when you are actually trying to use your personal credit card, then the mismatch of addresses entered will be caught by the online security and decline the card. If you see this message pop up at the end of your registration when you are selecting to "proceed with order" simply go to the left side of the registration screen and select enter a different billing address, follow the prompts from there and your order should go through the next time you select the "proceed with order" button.

3) Always remember to select "agree to the terms and conditions" before clicking "proceed with order" for your registration to be complete. A confirmation will automatically be emailed to you (and any other attendees for which you entered their email address to receive confirmation). This confirmation will have your total and should be printed out should you need a receipt for reimbursement or to turn in with your expense reports.