The Center for Veterans Enterprise Web Portal
Federal Contractor Certification
The Federal Contractor Certification is a training program for Veteran business owners intended to help these owners understand Federal contracting, respond competently to solicitations and perform sucessfully once they have won the contract. This is a joint project of the Center for Veterans Enterprise and the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC) with the assistance of the Defense Acquisition University (DAU).
The program, when fully implemented, will consist of four levels of certification, each with a different color of logo to represent successful completion of that level. Each successive level is built upon completion of all previous levels, so a company displaying the gold logo will have completed all four levels of the certification. Level 1 certification, symbolized by the red logo, covers the Basic Understanding of Federal Contracting. It consists of ten topics. For a complete listing of the topics and corresponding course modules click here.
Level 2 will cover Teaming, Joint Ventures and Legal Issues. Level 3 will be industry specific. The owner will choose his or her particular industry (e.g. Construction, Manufacturing, IT, Services, etc.) to learn the issues, regulations or policies that are unique to that industry. Level 4 is the most advanced and covers Special Certifications, Large Contract Vehicles and Advanced Issues.
To take part in this training, contact your nearest participating Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) and register with your counselor. The counselor will interview the owner to determine eligibility for the program. This program is aimed at established businesses who wish to participate in Federal contracting and have a basic knowledge of prerequisites such as Federal database registrations and other topics as determined by the counselor.
Once registered with the PTAC counselor, the owners will take the course modules at their own pace and present the completion certificates to their counselor. When all topics in the level have been completed, the owner will be eligible to take the comprehensive level exam at the center. There will be a minimum number of questions from each topic that need to be passed in order to pass the exam. Owners passing the exam will be presented with a lapel pin, logo and certificate to advertise this capability.
Additional Information:
The Vendor Information Pages Database is the only Federally controlled database in which a legal verification process is used to determine service disabled or veteran status of a small business. All companies participating in the Veterans First program under PL 109-461 are required to submit evidence of ownership / control and veteran status before being awarded a VA contract under the set-aside authority.