Size Standards Spark Industry Debate While many contractors are pushing for a dramatic increase in small business size standards, “SBA has been clearly focused on micro-businesses,” said Angela Styles, former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Speaking at Set-Aside Alert’s Size Standards Solutions Summit on March 4, Styles said, “They focused on the smallest of the smalls and that was their mission.” Khem Sharma, head of SBA’s Office of Size Standards, said the agency has no legal authority to aid mid-sized businesses. Sharma is leading the first comprehensive review of the standards in more than two decades. The summit was held before SBA announced its latest revisions in size standards for services. “When you exceed the size standard, all the years of effort you put in is out the window,” said Shiv Krishnan, CEO of Indus Corp., a mid-sized IT contractor based in Vienna, VA. He said federal policies keep small businesses small through restrictive size standards. Fernando Galaviz, chairman of the National Federal Contractors Association, said SBA’s mission is to make small businesses competitive. “Every time you hear that a small business has been sold, has been acquired by Lockheed Martin, that is a sign that the size standards have failed,” he added. Sharma said SBA bases its standards on a matrix of data relating to the structure of each industry. But Steve Denlinger, president of the Latin American Management Association, complained that SBA’s methodology is so complex that “it just doesn’t meet the common sense test.” Sharma invited comment on how the methodology could be changed. He said SBA is willing to consider setting separate standards for federal procurement, larger than those for the agency’s loan programs. But he said the agency is not sure it has the authority to set tiered standards, which would be complicated in any case: “If you establish different tiers, you have to establish different [procurement] goals for each tier.” Styles, who headed the Office of Federal Procurement Policy when SBA began its review of size standards, urged contractors to comment on the proposed changes, but not to ask for favors for any particular company or industry. “The single most important thing,” she said, is for the small business community to come together and speak with one voice. For regulators considering public input, Styles added, “Good substantive comments are like gold.” Participants in the Size Standards Summit have begun working on proposals to improve size standards regulations. They will present their ideas later this spring.