The Air Force OSDBU and Lockheed Martin Corp. have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve outreach to small businesses.

“This MOU will enable us to share resources to assist small business firms and to identify opportunities for them within both the Air Force and the Lockheed Martin Corporation,” said Joseph Diamond, OSDBU director. “It will also help increase the small business manufacturing base for the Air Force and serve as a model for other large business-to-Air-Force partnerships.”

Emmanuel N. Zulueta, Lockheed Martin senior vice president for corporate shared services, said the agreement “will help us in our quest for increasing our reach, identifying new suppliers, and making our products better.”

Lockheed Martin agreed to provide the Air Force Outreach Program Office with potential procurement opportunities for notification to small businesses and to work with the office to identify specific manufacturing procurement opportunities.

The Air Force point of contact is Martie Cenkci at 210-536-8756.

Most mid-sized companies report little or no increase in security spending since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a survey by the Conference Board. Forty-five percent of those surveyed say they have not increased security spending at all and 1% say they have actually cut back on security spending.

“The most alarming finding is that only 28% of mid-market companies have an off-site center for emergency operations, said Tom Cavanagh, the Conference Board’s corporate security expert and author of the report. “This suggests that many smaller American firms would have difficulty conducting their business in the event of a prolonged power outage or closure of their primary facility.”

The survey covered nearly 100 chief executives and other top officers in a wide range of mid-sized companies with annual revenues of between $20 million and $1 billion.

With two months to go in the fiscal year, SBA announced it had already issued a record number of loan guarantees.

Through August 6, the 7(a) loan program had guaranteed 67,493 loans so far in this year, despite a brief shutdown of the program in December and January because of funding uncertainties. The 504 program had backed 6,974 loans.

The higher numbers reflect SBA Administrator Hector Barreto’s emphasis on making smaller loans through the flagship 7(a) program.

Science Systems and Applications Inc. of Lanham, MD, and its president, Dr. Om Bahethi, has been named NASA’s Minority Contractor of the Year.

NASA’s Minority Subcontractor of the Year is Crewestone Technologies of Hampton, VA, headed by Larry Crewe. The Woman Owned Business of the Year is Cimarron, Inc. of Houston, Texas, headed by Rosalind Doyle.

The winners will be honored at a ceremony in Washington Sept. 9.