CINCINNATI — Navy veteran Mike Nichols says veteran-owned businesses aren't asking for handouts from the state, but they could use a little help leveling the playing field in competing with non-veterans who may have had more time to get on-the job-experience.
Ohio lawmakers are considering a bill to provide a bid preference of 5 percent or $5,000 to veteran-owned businesses competing for state contracts.
Ohio would join at least 27 states — up from 12 in 2009 — that have some type of law or executive order to help those businesses, according to the National Veteran-Owned Business Association. Some, including California and New York, go further by requiring a percentage of state contracts be set aside for businesses owned by service-disabled veterans, as does federal law, said association spokesman Matthew Pavelek.
Nichols, who owns Prudential Construction Group in Dayton, said veteran-owned business could compete better with bids lowered by 5 percent.
"We're just looking to get our foot in the door. Then we have to prove ourselves like anyone else," said Nichols, who also heads the nonprofit Veteran-Owned Businesses of Ohio that provides entrepreneurship training and assistance.
State Rep. Niraj Antani, the Republican joint sponsor of the bipartisan bill, says veterans deserve a preference for having served their country.
"It's our moral obligation to do what we can to help them," Antani said.
The bill has had its first hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee and would proceed to at least another hearing before a committee vote could be made on sending it to the full House.
Army veteran Jim Farrell, who owns Lawson Flag Supply Co. in Columbus, supports the preference he hopes could lead to other help for veteran entrepreneurs in the public and private sectors.
"I would like to see more commercial companies use veteran-owned businesses as suppliers," Farrell said.
Bidding preferences and set-asides for veterans have sometimes drawn opposition from minority- and women-owned business groups concerned that adding veterans might dilute their opportunities and slow some efforts.
Jim Brennan, legislative director for the Texas Coalition of Veterans Organizations, said it took several years to get the Texas law allowing eligible service-disabled veterans' businesses to participate as a hub for state contracts. Texas state agencies have goals for doing percentages of their business with state-registered hubs.
"Service-disabled, veteran-owned businesses compete now on an equal footing with minority-owned and women-owned businesses," Brennan said.
But bill sponsor Antani hasn't encountered opposition to the bidding proposal, and J. Averi Frost, director of the Columbus Minority Business Assistance Center, says it's "great."
"Some of our business owners are also veterans," Frost said.
A U.S. Census Bureau survey in 2007, which provided the most recent figures, showed more than 88,000 veteran-owned businesses in Ohio and 2.4 million nationally.
"Skills like leadership and discipline gained through military training make veterans good candidates for starting their own business," said Nichols, who works to help veterans employed by his company learn entrepreneurship and become qualified subcontractors.
Veteran business owners contribute to business creation and helped to build one of the longest periods of economic growth in U.S. history following World War II, according to a statement from Barbara Carson, acting associate administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Veterans Business Development.
"Veterans are a cornerstone of small business ownership," Carson said.
