“Keeping the Promise 2010” is hosted by the California Disabled Veterans Business Alliance and is structured to provide business matchmaking for California’s Disabled Veteran Business Enterprises (DVBE) as well as Service Disabled Veteran Owned Businesses (SDVOB) that attend. Business matchmaking places California disabled veteran owned companies and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Businesses (SDVOB) directly in contact with dedicated buyers of goods and services they provide.
KTP 2010 will be held on 24 and 25 May 2010 at the Irvine Marriott in Irvine, California. The website is www.ktpexpo.org. Contact the Alliance office with any questions at (916) 446-3510.
A strong team of leading businesses, lead by Title Sponsor McKesson, has been assembled for this event.
Title-McKesson, State Leadership-Department of General Services, Gala Dinner-AT&T, Gala Reception-Entrust, Luncheon-CVS Caremark, Advertising-Ability Magazine, Silver-Lockheed Martin, Bronze-PG&E and Construction Leadership Sponsor-Hensel Phelps Construction, Tuesday Breakfast- Amerit, Friends of the Alliance-Blue Shield of California, Genentech, Apple, Robert Half International, Boeing, Southwest Gas, Port of Long Beach, Chevron, Plantronics, Verizon, CA Department of Veterans Affairs, Clark Construction, NV Energy, Kaiser Permanente, AGC California, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, So Cal Edison and Sempra Energy.
Further the Business Matchmaking event at this exposition is provided free to our constituency based on the sponsorships of American Airlines, Dun & Bradstreet, American Express Open and Hewlett Packard.
The Alliance is a non-profit corporation that supports the California DVBE program and SDVOB in all states when needed. Its Corporate Advisory Board, of which McKesson is a member, works to advise the Alliance on its actions to support corporate America’s supplier diversity goals as they relate to Disabled Veteran Businesses. Learn more at http://www.cadvbe.org.
Alliance leadership traveled over 7000 miles in California talking to and working with disabled veterans and those who would do business with them in 2009. Over 173 membership e-mail blasts on contract opportunity were sent in 2009 by the Sacramento-based Alliance office and the Executive Director hosted 13 in-office meetings concerning grant opportunities, state agency DVBE participation and business development with disabled veterans interested in becoming business owners. The Alliance Board provided over 1900 hours of uncompensated, volunteer time and the Executive Director and Board President traveled to Washington D.C. to address disabled veteran issues and opportunity on behalf of California veterans.
The Alliance’s regional leadership volunteered over 900 hours to host 56 statewide network chapter meetings in eight regional locations with dvbe-owned companies and guests interested in opening doors for disabled veteran contractors. In addition, the DVBE Alliance and Regional Network Chapters participated in 16 major statewide business events, and attended another 42 pursuing issues of interest to disabled veterans.
Keeping the Promise 2009 (KTP) business expo provided free attendance to all disabled veteran businesses, initiated 978 business matchmaking meetings while growing the event into America’s largest disabled veteran business event.
At the California Legislature the Alliance was actively involved in four major initiatives in 2009, including implementation of SB 115, AB21X4 that eliminated the Good Faith Effort and AB 31that raised the SB/DVBE contract option to $250,000. The Alliance also provided strong support for SB 514 increasing penalties for prime contractors for fraudulent reporting of DVBE participation.
According to CA Department of General Services this active advocacy is having significant results. California state agencies in two of the last three years exceeded goals for contracting with small businesses and set a record for contracts with firms owned by disabled veterans, the Department of General Services announced in releasing reports for the 2007/08 and 2008/09 fiscal years. |
