AFCEA NOVA Small Business Breakfast (DLA)

Published: February 13, 2020

DLA

AFCEA NOVA Small Business Breakfast February 11, 2020 Guest Speaker: Mr. Dwight Deneal, Director of Small Business Programs for for DLA

The AFCEA Northern Virginia Chapter held their monthly Small Business Breakfast event on February 11, 2020 at the Oracle Auditorium in Reston, Virginia. This month’s speaker was the appointed Director the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) Office of Small Business Programs, Dwight D. Deneal. Mr. Deneal spoke on two major initiatives which include; DLA’s current approach to strengthen their interaction with small business contractors and the newly introduced standards for cybersecurity compliance within DOD.

For the first topic, DLA is utilizing four major themes to improve their engagement with small businesses. The theme of “Readiness” will allow DLA to identify the capabilities of small business contractors. The second theme covers “Resiliency” which will promote the importance of Cybersecurity for the agency. The third theme of “Relationships” relates to building partnerships between DLA and industry as a whole. The final theme of “Refinement” will require DLA to train their Small Business Advocates on communicating with Industry.

The major initiative that Mr. Deneal spoke about was on DLA’s approach to the newly announced cyber security standards for Industry referred to as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC).  The CMMC will eventually require contractors to comply with established cybersecurity guidelines in order to do business with the Department of Defense (DOD). The DLA Small Business Office will utilize and train Procurement Technical Assistance Program (PTAP) counselors in order to provide accurate information to contractors on cybersecurity compliance standards.

The main mission of the DLA Small Business Office is to improve engagement with Industry in order to improve the points of entry into the DOD market for small business contractors. In FY19 DLA processed approximately $15 Billion of obligated spending towards all contract actions for small businesses.  The new Cyber Security standards will continue to be a major initiative within DLA and across all DOD Agencies over the next few years.