Small Business Community Applauds Lawmakers for Leadership on SBIR Bill

Washington, D.C. – Earlier this week, the Small Business Technology Council (SBTC) announced the 2022 recipients of its Milton Stewart Award: lawmakers who championed small-business interests throughout the very contentious debate over reauthorizing the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The SBIR and STTR are highly successful programs that serves the federal government through the innovative efforts and achievements of America’s small businesses.

Among the lawmakers SBTC is recognizing: Reps. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), Chair of the House Small Business Committee; Blaine Leutkemayer (R-Mo.), Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee; Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology; Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology;  Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.); and Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Chair of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and John Kennedy (R-La.).

“In the decades I’ve been working with the SBIR/STTR programs, never has there been more difficult and contentious process,” stated Jere Glover, Executive Director of SBTC. “However, thanks to the pragmatism, persistence and deep commitment to small business by these lawmakers, we were able to embrace compromise and ensure the stability and long-term success of this program.”

SBTC and its umbrella organization, the National Small Business Association (NSBA) have been outspoken supporters of the SBIR/STTR programs for years and are particularly grateful for these lawmakers’ refusal to allow a program-wide shutdown that would have been catastrophic. The Milton Stewart Award is named in honor of Milton Stewart, the first Chief Counsel for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy, and one of the founders of the SBIR program.

The awards will be formally presented to lawmakers in November when the SBTC membership will attend a briefing in Washington, D.C. to learn more about the changes and new requirements as passed under the reauthorization bill. Please click here to learn more about that briefing.

SBTC is a council of NSBA and focuses on critical high-tech and innovation programs through the federal government. Both staunchly nonpartisan, NSBA and SBTC’s 65,000 members represent every state and every industry in the U.S. Please visit www.sbtc.org or follow us @NSBAAdvocate.