February has been an interesting month for SBIR reauthorization, as there was yet another attempt by the House to sneak a bill in through the back door, this time by Representative Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, who sent a Dear Colleague Letter asking for HR 2965 to be added to the jobs creation package currently being discussed in Congress. We asked our membership to tell Congress to oppose this attempt to circumvent the normal negotiations, and you responded tremendously. For the time being, it seems to have worked, as Rep Altmire has backed off a little bit from his original stance and has circulated another letter calling for a compromise bill to be included in the jobs package. We shouldn't let up the pressure, though. Please see the action alert notice below and send in a letter to your Congressman if you haven't yet.

As was mentioned in our last newsletter, a group of SBTC companies composed a list of suggestions to improve the DOD's SBIR program from an administrative perspective. The suggestions were very well received, and now DARPA has asked SBTC for suggestions on how to improve their SBIR program. Our first meeting went very well, and we will follow up with another meeting in early March. Like our DOD SBIR Suggestions paper, once we have finished and submitted our DARPA Suggestions paper, we will be sure to post it on our website, www.sbtc.org.

There are two big upcoming SBIR events this spring that the SBTC will be participating in, and we encourage all our members to save the date. Follow the links to learn more information and register.

National SBIR Conference
April 21-23
Connecticut Convention Center
Hartford, CT

NSBA Washington Presentation
May 26-27
Capital Hilton
Washington, DC

Once again I would like to thank all of our members for their effort and time spent in educating and communicating with Congress, and all our members who contributed to the DOD and DARPA Suggestion papers. As we've seen from the events of the last month, your efforts really do have an affect on what goes on in DC.

Jere W. Glover