Roger Williams

Sure. I would probably argue that small businesses are more likely to do things in the U.S.

We just actually got some funding from NSF to award a contract with Howard University that is on an SBR Inclusion Study.

So I will give you an example. Progeny Systems had I think over 300 awards over a 20-something year period.

the Small Business Act requires the SBA to report annually to Congress on the SBIR and STTR programs.

So I think the approach is worth expanding.

Stability. And I think some of these resource programs that we talked about so we can do more would help.

If Congress legislated SBIR agencies to transfer a portion of their 3 percent administrative funds to SBA, how would that help your office administer the program?

My experience at the Navy would argue against caps because we are looking to have the best technology available to address a need.

When I was at Navy they did pretty much all our contracting and we went to a central single source of contracting.

So I think if we had some more resources.

So anything we can do to help on the commercialization side is obviously important.

I believe that SBIR and STTR can really accelerate economic development in areas that are underserved.

the SBA was by far the worst at distributing business savings funds for the last 2 years

So, I think it is really up to the agencies then to determine why are you awarding to the same company.

I have not seen any of those affect what we do. The barriers that startups talk about are barriers that have been in place for a long time.

U.S. owned and operated. Absolutely.

any time that you can get a positive cash flow to invest in R&D or even buy equipment it helps.

This will reduce tax benefits for companies investing in R&D and will result in less domestic innovation, fewer jobs.

the administration should be focusing on alleviating the supply chain crisis, solving the worker shortage, and lowering regulatory costs

The total funding for the SBIR programs has increased as we have noted, as has the responsibilities for SBA.

It is in the law and it is up to Congress to determine those levels.

Sure. So, increasing geographic and demographic diversity is a priority of mine.

the only measures that we have are a DoD study. And I am going to get the years wrong but it was a 10-year timeframe that I think ended in--well, I will not quote it.

Well, there is Congress. We report it to Congress.

I think that is what the agencies do. So, the agencies are evaluated on commercialization potential.