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Federal Market Intelligence for Small Business |
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“Two Ears and One Mouth”: Meet Robb WongGetting to know Robb Wong, SBA associate admin. of government contracting & business developmentThe Trump Administration’s top appointee overseeing small business federal contracting has not appeared to seek much attention in 2017. Robb Wong, the Small Business Administration’s associate administrator of government contracting and business development, has made few public appearances. He has given almost no media interviews. Wong has stayed mostly out of the spotlight. That may be his style. As he told a group of Defense Department contracting officials in Atlanta earlier this year in one of his few speeches, he prefers to listen. “My father said, ‘You have two ears and one mouth. So you listen more than you speak,’” Wong told the group. He seems to be following that advice. His predecessor in the role in the Obama Administration, John Shoraka, frequently could be seen at small business events and often spoke with reporters. Wong, by comparison, has given only a handful of speeches, mostly outside the DC area. Wong did reveal some of his personality, goals and values in one of his first speeches in Atlanta shortly after he joined the SBA. A video of that event posted on the Internet has garnered some attention. It provides a few clues on Wong’s leadership style. His background Wong, an attorney, served in the SBA’s Texas office in 1995 and 1996 as an acting district director and district counsel. Since then, he primarily has run his own custom computer programming business, FedSolve LLC, in Rockville, MD. Under Wong, FedSolve was self-certified as a small, disadvantaged and minority-owned business and had won a number of federal contracts, according to GovTribe. Wong currently is on a leave of absence from FedSolve. Wong declined to comment for this article. Asian father Wong started his 60-minute talk in Atlanta by describing, as he put it, the ways he has dedicated his life to small business. He had his first small business at age 11, and his second--incorporated--at age 13. “I have an Asian Dad. So you work for everything. You don’t always get what you want, but everything you get, you deserve,” he said. He said he was offered the current post at SBA after helping out a friend on the Trump transition team and meeting with SBA Administrator Linda McMahon. “She is the real deal. A committed person. She gets it,” he said in his speech. Being “a visionary” Since joining the SBA, Wong said he’s observed that many SBA and federal contracting employees use government jargon and don’t have much experience in small businesses. “How do you serve your client if you don’t speak their language?” he asked. He described his role as providing high-level direction. “I’m a CEO. I’m a visionary,” Wong said. “Jackie Robinson-Burnette, she’s my president. She is implementation. (Note: Robinson-Burnette recently left the SBA. See story on page 1.) He further described SBA as a “business” offering certifications and other services “for sale.” The Procurement Center Representatives and Commercial Market Representatives are SBA’s “sales people” and “the most important people.” Another very important facet of SBA operations is “quality control,” by protecting against fraudulent firms, he added. “We are going to get back to applying the law so we have quality control,” Wong promised. Mixed feelings Wong said he has mixed feelings about his tenure at SBA back in the 1990s. On the one hand, he wrote a substantial revision of the 8(a) regulations, which he views as a significant accomplishment. On the other hand, “I did a nasty thing. I followed orders and I didn’t really understand what I was doing. I was younger. I liberated a thousand people. Simply put, I fired them,” he said. He said his current goal is to create at least 1,000 new jobs to partially make up for that action. More PCRs? Asked whether he would increase the number of PCRs at SBA Wong said, ”I’ll try. We have 57 people. Do the math. That is a lot of territory to cover (entire U.S.) with fewer than 60 people.” Certification comes last Asked for his advice for would-be federal contractors, Wong said the firms must “do their homework” to identify likely customers, must provide a product that people want, must be able to describe their technical specialties and why they are better than their competitors, and lastly, consider certifications. Too many small firms put emphasis on certification first, without doing the other work, he alleged. “Many small businesses get this ‘bass-ackwards,’” he joked. “Hope I didn’t ‘micro-agress’ against anyone here.” More Information: DoD/OSBP Small Business Training Week post: http://goo.gl/iDoYJX
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