Area business owners and entrepreneurs gathered Thursday at the third-floor offices of ERDCWERX in the Thad Cochran Mississippi Center for Innovation and Technology with one objective.

The small business workshop conducted jointly by the U.S. Army Engineering, Research and Development Center and ERDCWERX presented several speakers to help business owners learn how to improve their businesses and the process of getting government contracts.

“We’re hosting the event for small businesses and large businesses to learn more about government contracting — the different opportunities,” said Kimberly Dulaney, deputy of ERDC’s Office of Small Business Programs. “There are resources that are available to small businesses throughout our small business resource partners.”

One is ERDCWERX, which has a mission to cultivate a vibrant business ecosystem by encouraging entrepreneurship and shaping successful alliances to innovate and commercialize technologies that support the warfighter.

“I’ve been hearing that it’s hard to get a lot of small businesses to get involved with or get involved in the contracting part and we’re trying to find ways to get them involved,” Dulaney said.

The workshop, she said, is one of the ways to get information on contracting to small businesses so they will know what resources are available to help them get government contracts.

“Now we have the Mississippi Apex Accelerators,” Dulaney said of a Mississippi Development Authority program to assist small businesses going through the process of securing government contracts.

“If you hadn’t got into the SAM (System for Award Management), they’re there to walk you through that process,” she said. “SAM is the official website of the U.S. government. If you want to do business with the federal government you have to be registered with SAM.gov.

“They (Apex) help them with SAMs; they send them bid opportunities whether it’s from the state or federal government,” she said.

Besides MDA and the Apex Accelerator, Dulaney said the workshop also featured presentations by the Small Business Administration.

“It’s all about just letting small businesses know about the resources that are available,” Dulaney said.