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January 8, 2021 By cs

Leadership changes at Enterprise Innovation Institute

Karen Fite, who, for the past 18 months has led the Georgia Institute of Technology’s economic development efforts as interim vice president and director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), has retired after more than 27 years of service.

David Bridges, director of EI2’s Economic Development Lab (EDL), will assume the interim vice president role effective Jan. 1, 2021.

Karen Fite, who served as interim vice president and director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), has retired after 27 years of service. David Bridges, director of EI2’s Economic Development Lab (EDL), has assumed the interim vice president role.

EI2 is the largest and most comprehensive university-based program of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization, and economic development in the United States.

Prior to leading EI2, Fite ran the unit’s Business & Industry Services group of programs, comprised of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP), EI2’s largest economic development offering. The group also includes the Safety, Health, and Environmental Services (SHES), Atlanta MBDA Centers, Contracting Education Academy, Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC), and the Southeastern Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (SETAAC) programs.

Before taking on that role, Fite was GaMEP director.

“Over the years at Georgia Tech, I have been privileged to serve in a wide variety of capacities — assisting companies with government procurement, their implementation of quality management systems and Lean Manufacturing protocols, the launch of a Lean Healthcare initiative, creating community economic development research and strategic plans, and directing the GaMEP,” Fite said.

“As interim vice president, I have had the opportunity to interact with virtually every EI2 employee. Working with such a talented group of employees of EI2 has been an honor because across the board they are passionate about their work, dedicated to Georgia Tech’s mission of progress and service by serving clients, and continually looking to innovate, improve, and expand our services to help create long lasting and meaningful impact not only in Georgia and across the country, but around the world.”

Chaouki T. Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s executive vice president for research said Fite was a valued member of his leadership team.

“She has been a very effective and engaging leader,” Abdallah said. “She’s brought me solutions, given me critical feedback and has been an invaluable partner. Georgia Tech is lucky to have had her contributions for so long.”

Fite has a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Miami and a bachelor’s in health systems from Georgia Tech. In 2018, she achieved the faculty rank of principal extension professional, Georgia Tech’s highest professional extension faculty rank.

“We are fortunate to have someone of David Bridges’ caliber who can not only build on Karen’s legacy but also brings a wealth of experience and economic development successes,” Abdallah said.

Bridges, who joined EI2 in 1994, authored, co-authored or contributed to more than 100 economic development grants totaling more than $40 million. He assisted in the formation of the two proof-of-concept units — the Global Center for Medical Innovation, a Tech affiliate in the medical device space, and I3L, a health information technology innovation hub.

Beyond Georgia, Bridges helped catalyze the development of the Soft Landings program to bring companies from overseas to the United States. He also helped to establish the I-Corps Puerto Rico program as the National Science Foundation’s first I-Corps program ever offered to teams from that community.

He also supported the expansion of technology extension programs in Chile and Colombia, built a new program in professional development around innovation and technology commercialization, and expanded Georgia Tech’s presence by helping to build startup ecosystems around the Institute’s international campuses and in Latin America.

Bridges and his EDL team have also implemented ecosystem building projects for numerous countries including Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Argentina, Guatemala, South Africa, China, Korea, and Japan.

Source: https://news.gatech.edu/2021/01/07/karen-fite-interim-vp-and-director-enterprise-innovation-institute-retires

Filed Under: Georgia Tech News Tagged With: Contracting Academy, contracting education, EI2, Enterprise Innovation Institute, GaMEP, Georgia Tech, GTPAC, MBDA, SETAAC, SHES

February 21, 2012 By AMK

SBA’s loan system troubles could complicate reorganization

The Small Business Administration is behind schedule on five of six planned improvements to its Loan Management and Accounting Systems and costs for the overall project have risen about 20 percent since 2010 to $28 million, a recent Government Accountability Office report said.

That’s a common story with federal information technology acquisitions, which often run behind schedule and over budget. President Obama’s planned consolidation of SBA with several other business and trade agencies inside the Commerce Department could throw another cog in the wheels.

Major government reorganizations have a mixed track record of success, but one common feature, experts told Nextgov, is while the reorganization is in process, uncertainty rises.

“Often the [reorganization] process takes a lengthy period of time and during that period it’s difficult to deal with real issues and challenges in the agencies,” said Alan Balutis, a former chief information officer at the Commerce Department and now a director at Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group.

“It’s almost like you bifurcate staff and resources,” Balutis said. “One group works on the reorganization and integration and another group goes along doing their daily business and waiting for the day when someone pulls the switch and everything changes.”

During that transition period problems that already exist with a project or system can “linger and fester,” he said, because employees managing the project are unsure where the system will fit in the new organizational structure. Often those staffers also are unsure where they’ll fit in the new structure and, as a result, hesitant to make major decisions, he said.

“They’re working under uncertainty about ‘Where am I going to end up? Who am I going to be working for? How is this going to affect my grade and responsibilities?’ ” Balutis said. “And all of that is a distraction when you’re trying to carry on your regular duties.”

That’s not to say all acquisitions and projects will fare equally poorly during a bureaucratic transition.

“If you have [information technology] systems that are more enterprisewide, that support an agency function like, say, supply chain management or finance, those are likely to be more affected by reorganization,” said Raj Sharma, president of the Federal Acquisition Innovation and Reform Institute and author of a report on IT acquisition reform.

“If you’re looking at a mission-specific system, something that supports a critical program but we know it won’t be affected by reorganization, then there’s a higher degree of certainty,” Sharma said.

Programs also are less likely to fall into reorganizational paralysis if they’re being closely monitored by government leaders or the public, Sharma said.

That may bode well for SBA as Obama and Republican House leaders have spoken at length about the importance of small businesses to an economic recovery.

GAO’s review of SBA’s loan system was performed from February 2011 through January 2012, almost entirely before Obama announced his reorganization plan, Jan. 13. That plan will require congressional approval to be enacted, which may be tough to come by. It also involved elevating SBA to a Cabinet-level agency while the transition is in process.

A GAO spokesman declined to comment Thursday on how the proposed reorganization would affect problems with SBA’s Loan Management System saying it was beyond the scope of what the agency had looked at.

In its report, GAO criticized SBA officials for failing to validate that certain technical requirements had been met and for not identifying potential risks or taking steps to mitigate them. The agency also didn’t identify skills gaps on the project teams and didn’t get firm baselines from all contractors for how long the projects would take, GAO said.

“These weaknesses in basic management practices make it less likely that SBA will be able to complete the projects within the time, budget and scope parameters originally planned,” GAO said.

While Balutis is skeptical that major problems will be solved during the proposed SBA-Commerce reorganization, he supports the reorganization itself, which he said has been discussed for years in different forms. If done right, he said, the reorganization could save money and create useful cooperation between SBA and some units of Commerce that do similar work, such as the Minority Business Development Agency.

Balutis is cautiously optimistic that the reorganization can win congressional approval.

“There certainly hasn’t been much the White House and the Republican-controlled House has been able to agree upon over this last year and a half and probably the range of issues on which they agree is only going to narrow as we roll up to the election in November,” he said. “On the other hand, this does seem to strike the right chord. One thing a number of people agree on today is that we ought to rationalize the government. We ought to make it smaller and tighter to achieve savings. And that was a major premise of the White House announcement.”

— by Joseph Marks – NextGov –  02/10/2012 at http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20120210_9465.php?oref=rss.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Commerce Dept., consolidation, GAO, loans, MBDA, reorganization, SBA, technology

October 25, 2011 By AMK

Procurement chief defends Obama’s commitment to small business

A proposed rule to curb agencies’ little used capacity to offer higher payments to needier contractors “will have no impact on the government’s ability or commitment to drive contracting opportunities for small disadvantaged businesses,” Dan Gordon, administrator of the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said Friday.

In a blog post for the Office of Management and Budget, Gordon sought to reassure some in the minority business community that a proposed regulation issued in September by the Small Business Administration is a routine “housekeeping” tool designed to catch the law up with a 2008 court ruling that declared such price premiums unconstitutional.

“The proposed rule in no way changes the fundamental policies, practices or programs that agencies have been using in recent years to achieve strong SDB participation in the federal marketplace, including the goal of awarding 5 percent of federal procurement dollars to SDBs,” Gordon wrote.

The affected agencies — the Defense Department, NASA and the U.S. Coast Guard — have not used price premiums to attract disadvantaged small contractors in years, Gordon noted. But the administration has “been working with the Minority Business Development Agency to strengthen the bond between contracting, small business and program offices at every agency,” Gordon wrote. “Since the beginning of [fiscal] 2009, agencies have awarded more than $85 billion in contracts to SDBs, exceeding the goal of awarding at least 5 percent of contract dollars to SDBs.” In fiscal 2010, he added, contract awards to small disadvantaged businesses accounted for 7.95 percent of all eligible contract dollars, “well above the goal.”

Gordon’s clarification came as the Obama administration readied a new set of executive actions designed to spur job creation in large and small businesses while Congress debates the president’s larger proposed jobs package.

The perception among some that ending premium payments to disadvantaged businesses was a pullback in the administration’s commitment was rejected by Molly Brogan, vice president of public affairs for the National Small Business Association. “At the end of the day, small businesses just want a level playing field,” she told Government Executive. “Ensuring that small businesses — including SDB businesses — have a fair opportunity to compete for federal dollars ought to be the No. 1 goal. We don’t believe this new rule will change [that] in any way.”

Raul Espinosa, founder of a Jacksonville, Fla. – based university nonprofit called the Fairness in Procurement Alliance, which has been pressing for stronger rules on accelerating payments to small disadvantaged businesses, said he was grateful for the administration’s overall effort, but worries it might be “lip service.” Changes “will mean nothing unless they’re codified into the federal acquisition regulation and referred to in actual contracts,” he said.

—  by Charles S. Clark – Government Executive – October 24, 2011 – http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=49130&dcn=e_tma

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Coast Guard, competitive price advantage, DoD, full and open competition, MBDA, NASA, OFPP, OMB, premium payments, price adjustment, SBA, small business, small disadvantaged business

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